Library Pass
by Pat Foley
Summary: A dinner party and Amanda's new Vulcan staff get somewhat out of hand in this rather silly romance. For those who told me they fangirl Sascek. All 12 chapters up and complete Holography series 3B
1. Chapter 1

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 1**

If you go out in the woods today  
You're sure of a big surprise.  
If you go out in the woods today  
You'd better go in disguise.

For ev'ry bear that ever there was  
Will gather there for certain, because  
Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

The old Fortress that Amanda called home might have been the site of innumerable battles and conflicts in ancient history, but for the past few millenniums it had been a relatively peaceful place, given the clan that called it home. But today, the sun had barely climbed over the desert sands before the crash and clatter of workman descended upon the courtyard, accompanied by the sound of myriad voices. Amanda winced at a particularly unVulcan crash, and muttered to whatever deity might be listening, "Please help get us through this day."

She'd forgotten her Vulcan husband had excellent hearing, even across the room.

"Amanda? I don't understand. You are hardly lacking in help. But if you require additional --"

"Oh, I wasn't talking to you," Amanda admitted. "Just muttering a silent prayer to the gods. Do you think they can be listeningall the way from Earth? Through all this racket?"

"The gods?"

"The gods of dinner parties."

"Those are a set a deities of whom I am unfamiliar."

"Trust me, they're intimately familiar to every human woman from the time she sends out the first invitation."

Sarek paused in his dressing and looked at her. "Intimately?"

"Don't be blasphemous. Hopefully they'll take pity and not visit any major disasters on us before, during or until the last guest leaves the party this evening." She winced at another crash. "Though from the sound of that, it's unlikely. Sarek, please tell me what they are doing out there. I'm afraid to look."

Sarek flicked a brow and crossing the room, stepped out onto the balcony. "They are merely unloading materials."

"For what? A new house?"

"It appears to be some sort of lighting system," he said, narrowing his eyes to see the writing on the containers.

"Lighting system? That's a lot of noise for the few fairy lights I usually have strung up in the courtyard and the formal gardens. Amanda joined Sarek on the balcony, peering around him as if reluctant to see it too openly. "Oh, no! That woman is unbelievable. That's enough to light Manhattan! We're not going to do surgery out there! I've got to go down there and try to explain this. God give me the strength to deal with my 'help."

"I have never heard you invoke such deities before."

"I was probably sparing your Vulcan sensibilities. I have wished for a dinner party god before. There isn't one, but there should be," she said. "Of course there's always Santa Rita. Patron Saint of Impossible Cases. A dinner party ought to qualify. Short of a treaty conference, I've known few events more in need of miraculous intervention."

"Why should you request supernatural aid for a routine social event?" Sarek asked, his brow creasing.

She stared at him. "Two hundred guests, all diplomats and politicos? You call that routine?"

Sarek shrugged. "We have given myriad such parties before."

"We? What is this we business?" Amanda wagged her head at him. "Having a dinner party is something like having a baby. The husband is there at the conception. He'd darn well better be there at the birth. But in between he's not much use. Except for moral support that is. And telling me how illogical I am is **not** what **I** call moral--"

"Argument by analogy is invalid," Sarek countered in amusement. "Your reasoning is flawed."

"Perhaps. But I am still right."

"It is true that I leave such doings, parties, that is, to your expertise. But they have all gone exceedingly well."

"Shh!" She looked up at the ceiling. "He didn't mean it!" She shook her head at him. "You don't even have any salt to throw over your shoulder."

Sarek stared up at the ceiling, then back down at her. "Why should I throw -- ? And to whom were you speaking? Given you acknowledge there is no deity--"

"I'm not proud," Amanda confessed. "In lieu of a god for dinner parties, any will do in his stead. I'm feeling somewhat desperate at the moment."

"My wife you are being entirely illogical."

"Yes, in that useful as one might be to women in my position, there isn't a deity or religion so dedicated. Given that, I'm thinking of starting one. Necessity, you know is the mother of invention. Of course, in keeping with the subject matter, it would have to be a cut throat religion, requiring suitable rites. Human sacrifice is, of course, _di rigueur_ at almost any political party. So that's a given."

"Human –" Sarek's brows flew to his bangs.

"But I'm sure a god of this caliber would require something above the usual social knife work. And humans being in short supply, perhaps they'd take a security guard as sacrifice instead? We have those in plenty, and they seem **so** willing to put their life on the line for the cause." She looked up at her husband innocently. "Do you think Sascek would mind?"

"I rather think he would," Sarek said dryly.

"I suppose I'll just have to worry then."

"I see no cause for…. worry."

"Spoken like a man. I never knew one that ever worried about a party."

"I am not a man, but a Vulcan," Sarek said equably. "It is illogical to bear undue concern about an event which is well in hand."

As if in answer, outside there came a particularly resounding crash, and a chorus of Vulcan voices raised in argument.

Amanda hands had flung to cover her ears at the noise. Even Sarek flinched. Now she drew them away and pushed back her hair. . "Take a good look at who you married here, bub. Logic is not my specialty."

Sarek was shaking his head to clear the ringing from his own ears. "But such parties are. You do them exceedingly well."

"If we discount what is happening outside," she said.

"This is not the normal state of preparations."

"I know. Well, perhaps there is a god and he'll take pity on me. Even sans a Vulcan sacrifice."

"Did I never mention, my wife, that in truly ancient Vulcan history, prior to even Pre-Reform, those of Surak's clan were considered to be of deistic heritage?"

Amanda rolled her eyes at this hither-to unknown fact. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Indeed. There are several legends which--"

"Spare me," she forestalled him. "You do realize that delusions of godhood is all your ego has ever lacked, my husband."

Sarek shrugged, not denying the assertion. "Another inherited trait. I will ignore the pejorative nature of your statement and simply assert that if you wish, you may consider your prayers…heard. And in lieu of a traditional benediction," Sarek bent his head down to hers, but his lips had only just brushed hers when she heard the unmistakable sound of the outer suite door being opened. She had hung a door harp on that portal for that very purpose. "Elf alert!" she murmured and drew quickly back.

There was a tap at the door, and at Amanda's permission, T'Jar entered, as innocent and sparkling as the new day. "Good morning, my lady."

"Good morning, T'Jar."

"Senet is in the downstairs hall, my lord," T'Jar told Sarek, "and says that there have been two requests to meet with you before the morning Council session. And the Matriarch has also requested you meet with her before morning scheduling since you will be occupied this evening."

"Duty calls," Amanda murmured. Seeing a frustrated line drawn between her husband's brows, she added, "I'll walk down with you."

"I fail to understand, Amanda," Sarek said, as they descended the long staircase, leaving T'Jar busy on her morning chores, "why you insist on being so …circumspect…around the staff. I have explained--"

"Yes, you did. But the last staff member who ended up jealous of your attentions threw me off the roof," Amanda said. "So much for your assertion that personal attendants don't notice or care about such things."

"That was an exceptional situation."

"I'll say. But let's try to keep our private lives private, my husband. It's little enough for me to ask, isn't it?"

"It was considerably easier to accomplish when our private lives **were** private. Amanda, surely you do not expect T'Jar to hold T'Lean's views?"

"No, not really. Though it never ceases to amaze me, the many women who line up to throw themselves at your feet." She gave him a look. "Someday, you must tell me how you do it."

Sarek was undrawn. "You are attempting to change the subject. And I will not."

"Look, I think I've been an awfully good sport up till now."

"A good…sport?"

"You've put up with my moods for twenty years, so I'll give you those six months of _vrie_ _carte_ _blanche_."

Sarek raised a brow at that. "Indeed."

"But I barely get over that before you throw me into the deep end of the pool, work wise. And then T'Pau recognizes me and gives me all these clan responsibilities, not to mention letting loose a deluge of clan retainers, one of whom dangles me off a building."

"From which I rescued you," Sarek pointed out.

"You do get points for that, true. I can hardly complain about the ending. But you must admit it has been a **taxing** six months."

"I concur."

"And even home isn't private any more. I've let us be invaded by all these …attendants. I've put up with cooks and council scribes and scullery maids and guards. I've given in and let T'Jar maintain our suite. I have even had to argue over who makes my own **bed**. And I barely won that argument, and **only** by unfair means."

"Unfair?"

"I pulled rank. Being a clan leader is good for something," Amanda said, to her husband's amusement. "But besting T'Jar is one thing, T'Rueth quite another. I'm used to doing these parties a certain way. But she has taken over this event with the force of a juggernaut. And getting around her is considerably more difficult than getting around T'Jar. So things are feeling a little crowded around here, you know?"

"Given how large a building the Fortress is," Sarek admitted. "It does seem unduly populated," he winced at a particularly piercing screech of metal, "of late. What are they doing out there now?"

"I suppose it's my turn to look, but I really don't want to. Perhaps it is our enemies constructing the Vulcan equivalent of a Trojan Horse. Can you instruct the guards not to let in any wooden horses? Or lematya? Or whatever the Vulcan equivalent would be?"

"Vulcan hardly has enough wood for such an endeavor. And I hardly consider any of our guests as enemies, Amanda."

"Most of the guest list are hardly friends," she countered. "This isn't a Teddy Bear picnic we're hosting. Though I confess I **am** afraid to go out in the woods today. Or at least afraid to see what the Teddy Bears are up to out there."

"Amanda, now you have truly lost me."

"Never mind. You know these parties are important. Despite the social pretensions, a lot of work gets done. When I had control of these events I knew how to handle things. But now--"

"But you have had help for parties before," Sarek pointed out.

"Yes, of course I did. I can't cook and serve 200 people. I hired catering firms. **Terran** catering firms." She joined Sarek at the dining table in the main hall, where two places were set at the huge table. She unfolded her napkin and took a sip of freshly squeezed orange juice, cut with water exactly as she liked it. It didn't soothe her mood. She'd discovered there was such a thing as too much efficiency. "You sit down with them, plan the menu and the usual sort of preparations and then they come and do it. It's nerve-wracking but nothing like this. I suggested to T'Rueth we do this the usual way, but she was -- well, the Vulcan equivalent of horrified. Her Vulcan pride was offended – and don't tell me there is no such thing. I am dealing with turf wars, my husband. She was insistent that this was part of her duties and she didn't want them jobbed out. How could I refuse her?"

"I have never known T'Rueth to lack competence," Sarek commented. "And I can only believe that your present staff – controlled, logical Vulcan attendants must certainly be efficient--" A particularly jarring crash made them both wince.

"Yes, it's filling me with confidence. It's like a juggernaut let loose. She's determined that she'll outdo any present or future contenders. I had no idea she'd take my suggestion of the usual catering firms as an invasion force. "

"Other than the present …noise….do you have any specific concerns?"

"She keeps 'doing research'. And changing things."

"These preparations do seem to me somewhat in excess of prior events. Are you concerned she is unequal to the task?"

"Going too overboard is more the danger. **She's** thoroughly enjoying herself. It's me that never knows what to expect next. I keep having to rein her in. And now I've got to talk to her about those lights." Amanda drew a strengthening breath and a sip of fortifying tea. "And I had better do it now, before they get too far ahead. Wish me luck."

"I will wish you--"

"Say it and you're dead," Amanda threatened him, only half in jest.

All innocence, Sarek just raised his brows, and striving to ignore another resounding crash, went back to his breakfast.

_To be continued_

**References**

_Teddy Bear Picnic, words by Jimmy Kennedy, music by John K. Bratton 1907_

8


	2. Chapter 2

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 2**

Picnic time for teddy bears,  
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today.  
Watch them, catch them unawares,  
And see them picnic on their holiday.

Squaring her shoulders as if for battle, Amanda entered the kitchen. "Good morning, T'Rueth."

"Good morning, my lady." The kitchen staff had quadrupled in the last week. T'Rueth had conscripted several cooks from T'Pau's Palace, all busily working away rolling out pastries. What looked like half the Matriarch's kitchen staff were preparing vegetables, while a line of workers was dropping basket after basket of fruit in the far panty. Outside Amanda heard one of the gardeners, his voice raised to be heard above the delivery trucks and unloading noises, complaining bitterly about T'Rueth's orders that his cutting garden was be virtually stripped to make floral arrangements for the parties, when he had just tidied it for the upcoming party, while the head gardener reminded him that was the logical purpose of a cutting garden, and did he think he was in charge of one of the formal gardens? Amanda winced as the first gardener emphatically stated this had never happened before. Given that she never much cared for cut flowers, the sudden and abrupt harvesting of flowers for centerpieces must have come as a severe shock to that ancient and staid Vulcan, kept on even after he was past keeping the formal gardens in order. Amanda hoped he wouldn't take it too amiss. Outside, the clash and clatter of workmen continued, drowning out even that discussion and even T'Rueth had to raise her voice to make herself heard above the racket. "I have several issues to discuss with you regarding this evening's event."

"Oh?" Amanda steeled herself. "I have some to discuss with you."

"I think we must dispense with the notion of sensei melons as appetizers."

"But everyone likes them, Vulcan and humans, and they are rare enough in commerce to be sure to be a treat," Amanda argued. "And we have plenty ripening in the gardens. Why shouldn't we use them?"

"I am not satisfied with their quality."

"Sarek had one for dinner last night and he didn't complain. In fact he devoured it right down to the rind," Amanda threw her husband to the lions – embodied in this case by T'Rueth -- without a qualm.

T'Rueth fixed her with a gaze that would have shot down T'Pau. "Do you think I would put a bad melon on my table, my lady? Or before my lord?"

Amanda sighed. "No, T'Rueth. Of course you would not. So you're saying the other melons **are** bad?"

"I am saying there are more suitable alternatives. Of which I have prepared a list."

Amanda received it warily and her eyes widened. "This is quite a list. What specifically did you wish to substitute instead?"

"We will offer melons, such as I think fit. And a collation of other fruits and some soups, both hot and cold."

Her jaw dropped. "You mean you want to offer **all** these dishes?"

"Of course. Our guest list is very diverse. We should offer diversity in turn."

Amanda suspected T'Rueth wasn't blind that IDIC in this case gave her the chance to showcase her considerable talents – much more than cutting a melon, even those cut so fancifully as to be art sculptures. And she hadn't failed to notice that her guest list had become _our_ guest list. "It's a lot more work for you. And a very late change. Wouldn't it be simpler to just settle on one thing?"

"Simple, my lady?"

"Sometimes simple is best." Amanda said. "Minimalism can be elegant. Less is more."

T'Rueth raised a brow.

"It isn't logical." Amanda agreed. "But it's often true."

"I will keep that in mind, my lady. " T'Rueth said, while giving the impression entirely otherwise. "But I have never set a minimal table. Now, as to my menu substitutions?"

Amanda glanced down the list. "I suppose. If you think it best. But pare it down to half of what's here, and that way the guests will have an easier choice. Otherwise they'll be so busy trying appetizers they'll never taste your main course. Really, I think that will be best, T'Rueth," she added forestalling the Vulcan woman's arguments. "But I'll leave the final selection up to you.

"And I think it would be better to use the T'Dayeth tableware rather than the Shinn."

Amanda bit her lip and refused to even ask, after T'Rueth had insisted she sit down with her one morning and laboriously review the pattern databases listing all the tableware in the fortress, why she would suddenly want to substitute one obscure Vulcan 'china' pattern for another. When they had both agreed on the Shinn. But she didn't care. It didn't matter to her. Perhaps someone had dropped a crate moving something out of storage. Or, heretical thought, the inventory had been wrong. She would not even ask, sparing something of herself for the final battle. "Fine."

"And, regarding the lighting--"

"That's what I came in to talk to you about," Amanda broke in. "T'Rueth, there is no need to put up all that lighting. There is already external lighting in the courtyard and formal gardens. The fairy lights are just for accent. You've ordered four times as much as we previously discussed."

"Five point two. I deemed it best, and assumed the prior estimated figures were in error. For surely the purpose of lighting is to see clearly in darkness."

"Not this lighting. These are just to set a mood. A tone. Not a bone."

"A bone, my lady?"

"Social knife work aside, we won't be conducting surgery out there. We want a play of light and shadow. A chiaroscuro. It gives people needed cover – and never was that more needed than at diplomatic events. This will be a party, not a debate or a treaty negotiation. A little shadow is appropriate in certain areas. So send half the lights back, T'Rueth."

T'Rueth held her ground. "Even with minimal lighting, it will be needed to light all the gardens."

"But we aren't going to light **all** the gardens," Amanda argued. "Only the courtyard and the formal gardens. To light all the gardens with fairy lights would take --"

"Exactly what I have estimated," T'Rueth concluded with relish. "And there will be a great many guests. There are a great many gardens. I think it is best that we light them all. Surely the guests will wish to see our Terran rose gardens. And the greenhouses and cool houses have been straightened and prepared for the party. People will wish to tour them. Many are turned away from the tours every week."

Amanda hadn't failed to notice how her rose gardens had suddenly become **our** rose gardens. There was no need for "hothouses" on Vulcan, but her succession houses weren't a new idea in gardening, and were used to take certain crops through a seasonal cool spell sometimes required to set fruit or flower. They'd never been on the tour. On the other hand, if the Vulcan staff wanted to show off their hard work, and were using T'Rueth to forward that aim, she would hardly deny them this opportunity. Though it would be nice if Vulcans, for once, would just admit to pride and **say** so. "It's not the principle purpose of the party."

"I've been told that the gardens and succession houses are left always accessible to the party guests. That party guests have been known to walk through them."

"Well naturally we don't post guards and run them off, and people do walk through them, but--"

"To reach them, the guests will need additional lighting. Unlike Vulcans, Humans cannot see in the dark. We would not want to risk injury by negligence."

Amanda drew a breath and capitulated, wondering why she even bothered to argue. This party was definitely slipping out of her hands. "Very well, T'Rueth. You may light all the gardens with fairy lights. Just remember they are not meant to turn night into day. They are meant to give minimal lighting. Think of the effect of fluorescent insects in the dark – not searchlights meant to add security to a dilithium power station. One strand of lights per pathway should be enough. The effect is meant to be subdued. Subtle."

"Of course, my lady."

Amanda studied her satisfied expression, suspecting that, like Sarek, T'Rueth was always going to get exactly what she wanted, and had learned to start out bargaining high to obtain it. "I appreciate your hard work and I'm sure everything will be lovely, T'Rueth."

She joined Sarek in the main dining hall, where he was finishing breakfast, closing her eyes to all the workmen she spied on the way in the kitchens and terraces and courtyards. "What a nightmare."

"How did it go?" Sarek asked, looking up.

Amanda made a pretense of mopping a haggard brow. "Are you sure T'Rueth isn't in your direct line?"

"She is of a sub-branch."

"Well, I think she has delusions of godhood too. And she's very good at negotiating. Not to put too fine a point on it, she mopped the floor with me." Seeing his expression change minutely, she added, "Oh, none of it was really worth arguing about. But I'm beginning to think I should just carry in a white flag before we even start and beg for mercy."

"Hopefully it is to both your advantage," Sarek said.

"There are times when I doubt it," Amanda said. "But I suspect she's just having first time jitters and doesn't want me to see it."

"Jitters?"

"She's nervous. Hence the overdoing. It's very common for a first dinner party. T'Rueth and I get on very well, on whole. She just needs to get this night past her."

Sarek winced at the rumbling of a servo vehicle delivering more party supplies. "Given these recent repercussions, I confess to some small doubts myself. But in the end, I trust Vulcan efficiency will prove itself and will surely be able to deliver a party equivalent to your Terran firms. Controlled, logical Vulcan attendants should be in every way superior--"

A door banged, and T'Rueth's sharp voice was heard raised from the kitchen, causing Sarek to abruptly cease that argument, while T'Rueth could be heard saying, "But those are to be set up on the Terrace, not here in the house. What do you mean bringing them into my kitchen! The instructions were quite plain. T'Jar will show you where they go. T'Jar!" T'Rueth might have been speaking into the house communication system, but her voice carried even to Amanda's ears, and though he didn't exactly wince, Sarek closed his eyes briefly and at that, abandoned his argument and the field.

"I must go. I now appear to have several meetings before morning scheduling."

"Oh, stay and fight," Amanda teased. "Leaving me here without any moral support."

Sarek raised a brow. "If you desire an expression of support and approval --" he leaned down.

"I am coming!" called T'Jar and came tripping down the stairs, took the shortcut through the dining hall to the kitchen, and flying through past them as if they weren't there. Amanda stepped back from her husband as if burned.

"Amanda," Sarek said, not so much in reproof as in frustration. "She surely did not--"

"See anything. Probably not. And maybe she wouldn't care if she did. I was just startled. This party thing is getting to me too. But Sarek, that girl is a positive innocent. And I'm not going to be the one to shatter her Vulcan illusions. Nor, my husband, are you. In another day, things will be back to normal. Or such normal as things have lately been around here. And **we** can get back to normal."

"If her youth makes you consider her unequal to her duties, perhaps we should acquire more mature attendants."

"She's a nice girl. I like her. I like her so much I wish I had another son. She'd make a daughter-in-law I'd be pleased to have."

Sarek glanced at her. "She is hardly a suitable candidate."

"That was your mother's argument. Against me. Anyway, it's a moot point. Suffice to say, I find her charming and sweet. And I've already dealt with one jilted girlfriend, thank you, so I prefer someone like her, who isn'ta contemporary with disappointed affections. At least T'Jar is too young for romance. She just finished reading Alice in Wonderland."

"There was no jilting involved," Sarek said, mildly offended.

"I believe you. Regardless, I wouldn't want T'Jar to think she's done something wrong. She's so proud to be in service here."

A shade of exasperation touched Sarek's face. "T'Jar is Vulcan, my wife. Pride does not come into it."

"Tell T'Rueth that. And even you've been known to--"

"Amanda--"

"Oh, the Vulcan equivalent of proud, then. And I won't shatter that either. Anyway, I think she likes it here." Amanda gave him a look. "Remember, it wasn't my idea to have all this…help. Unless you think I'm not managing things properly."

Sarek drew a measured breath. "Never that. Though I do tend to agree that in some respects life was considerably easier before we had…help."

"See, we could use a few gods," Amanda teased. "At the very least our staff outnumber us."

The door to the main hall opened and Sedet peered inside. "Leader, there is now only twelve point two--"

"I am coming," Sarek unthinkingly echoed T'Jar's words, and nearly her tone, and at his wife's smothered laughter gave Amanda a glance that promised future retribution. "I will be out presently," Sarek said, dismissing his guardsman.

"And out of time," she added.

Sarek decided not to wait for the future. He estimated that after the number of violations to their privacy they'd just received, that they had at least a standard minute before the next one.

Amanda's eyes widened, surmising his intention, and she drew an anticipatory breath…

And T'Jar pattered in from the kitchen. This time, both of them pulled away as if burned. Even T'Jar froze for a moment. "My lady, T'Rueth asks have you finished with your breakfast? Because there are preparations to be made here, so perhaps if you are not you would take a tray in your--"

Amanda let out her held breath in a frustrated sigh. "No. Neither, T'Jar," she said, eager to get out of the way. "I'll just leave for the Academy now. But I won't be holding office hours. Tell T'Rueth that I'll be back early, directly after my classes, to…to help."

"To… help, my lady?" T'Jar looked astonished.

"Yes. I used to--"

"T'Jar!" T'rueth called.

"I will tell Sascek to come now," T'Jar said, and ran back to the kitchen, where he was no doubt breakfasting.

"--do this myself. Once," Amanda finished faintly. "Once. Not **all** that long ago," she said. "Though it has begun to seem like another life…" She could hear T'Jar's light voice scolding, before the kitchen door swung closed.

"Surely you have breakfasted enough, Sascek. The Lady Amanda is ready to leave for the Academy--"

Amanda sighed again, hearing only the rumble of Sascek's reply, sans words, but thinking anyone that big, interrupted from his breakfast, was bound to be in a grouchy mood. "Was it another life?" She asked Sarek, who kept looking from the door to her as if estimating odds.

"If it was, it was on the whole a better one," Sarek said. "I am now more than ready to send all these attendants back to T'Pau."

"Let's just run away ourselves," Amanda said wickedly, as they threaded through what looked like half of T'Pau's grounds staff in addition to her own. "And let the Teddy Bearsparty on their own." She looked up at Sarek. "You'd better go. You've got meetings, and this--" she waved a hand at the flurry behind them, "is a lost cause."

"Indeed, but not quite yet." Sarek took her hand and pulled her to him. Her eyes widened. "You're not! Not before…everybody?"

"This appears to actually be the only quiet place," Sarek said, looking around. "They have plagued us long enough, but for once, they are all engaged in other chores. Quite sparing us their notice."

"I think you're right," Amanda said, looking back at the forest of workers, all Vulcan and busily engaged in their duties and paying not the slightest attention to them.

"Alone in a crowd," she murmured to Sarek. He succumbed to privacy enough to pull her behind the cover of his broad back, and the wide panel of the gate. And this time they did manage to finish at least a quick kiss without interruption, with the Vulcan staff largely unawares.

But in spite of their precautions, not entirely without observation. Having hustled Sascek to finish his breakfast, T'Jar slipped out the side door to tell her lady he was coming. Over a stone fence that separated one garden room from another, she stopped, stock still, eyes wide in astonishment.

"T'Jar?" Sascek came up behind her, looking from her to where Sarek was stepping through the gate, his hand trailing from Amanda's. "T'Jar? Are you ill?"

And T'Jar raised her flushed face to his, and fled back to the kitchen, where she realized T'Rueth had been calling her for the last minute.

Sascek went to get his lady's flyer, glancing back to where he could see T'Jar's face, at one of the terrace windows, before it too disappeared. More familiar with his employers, he realized what she might have seen.

He trudged into the hanger, a twinge of concern crossing his Vulcan features.

_To be continued--_

9


	3. Chapter 3

**Library Pass**

By

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 3**

See them gaily dance about.  
They love to play and shout.  
And never have any cares.

At six o'clock their mommies and daddies  
Will take them home to bed  
Because they're tired little teddy bears.

Later that morning, T'Jar finished tidying the master suite, putting a last few touches on the room. The mistress did insist on making the bed, a menial task for a clan leader, but T'Jar still straightened and smoothed its clan shield coverlet to her own Vulcan standards of neatness. And then her eyes went to the bedtable where reposed a book. For a moment, T'Jar resisted, then she picked it up and riffled through it. And was disappointed. **Emma** again. It seemed so illogical to reread the same book. But it highlighted to T'Jar her own faults of illogic. Was she not doing the same thing? In one respect, it helped, to know her behavior was apparently the norm for this activity. But it reminded T'Jar that regardless, it was a human norm. And she herself was Vulcan. Vulcan.

She thought of Sarek, of what she had seen. Or almost seen…

**He** was Vulcan, too. But she had seen… What she had **thought** she'd seen…

No. He **was** Vulcan. She must have been mistaken.

And **she** was Vulcan. It was all very well to give a nod to IDIC, but… it was time for her to return to Vulcan behavior. She was sure of it.

She sighed, fully, feelingly. And put the book down. Reminding herself that she had one of her own to…put down. At least in the essential sense of things. And even harder to restrain herself from taking another up. Best to do it now, while her resolve was still strong.

Leaving the master suite she retrieved a book from her quarters. Estimating she had another few minutes before T'Rueth would expect her, she went reluctantly to fulfill her Vulcan duty. At the top floor of the ancient fortress, she glanced up and down the long gallery corridor and then slipped surreptitiously through the automatic doors of the library and media center. Her volume clutched against her breast, she made her way through the library to the section of stacks where it belonged. The library inside was divided into two main sections. On the one side resided the ancient texts of Vulcan philosophers, the history of the clan of Surak and of the Vulcan people, the laws and logical treatises of five thousand years of Vulcan wisdom.

And on the other side, Amanda's library. An arcane if eclectic selection of non-fiction. And a hodgepodge of something rare on Vulcan: fiction. Not philosophies or histories or lectures or disciplines, but fiction – children's literature that few Vulcan children would ever read, mystery that would mystify no Vulcan except for its existence, fantasy that no Vulcan could conceive, adventures no Vulcan would undertake and … romance. Romance that had no place in a logical society. It was just such a book that T'Jar was returning.

Drawing a strengthening breath, her heart beating fast, T'Jar plunged into the stacks willing her eyes not to see, or at least, to see just enough to shelve the book in question. No sooner than she had fitted it into place than she turned, and eyes nearly closed, sped through the library to the outer doors. Hands free.

And on the outside, drew a relieved breath. She had done it. For the first time in several weeks, she had not taken a new book from the library. She resolved that no more of these illogical human ideas would occupy her thoughts.

But what she had seen. Almost seen. Thought she'd seen? Still plagued her.

She told herself she was being illogical. A Vulcan engage in such behavior? She had seen nothing.

And went back to her duties.

xxx

But as she went about her chores, the day seemed, illogically to drag, with nothing new with which to look forward. She could not seem to discipline her thoughts. Far from being banished with her erstwhile book, the siren call of the library was as strong as ever. More so, knowing she had not even one to peruse. She was regretting her bookless state enough that she sought validation of her choice from one who was both Vulcan and her everyday mentor -- in a way that her erstwhile employer was not. She accosted T'Rueth after luncheon, though the cook was in a flurry with the party preparations.

"T'Rueth, don't you find it…curious…that Lady Amanda – who is logical and disciplined in many ways -- a respected teacher and researcher, should collect and read archaic paper books?"

"Why should it be curious?" T'Rueth asked, struggling with an unwieldy plomeek, one of a series that were lined up awaiting their doom. "She is a scholar. Her place is with such writings, as my place is with," the first section of the stem finally yielded to T'Rueth's determined assault, though covering the cook with orange colored juice, "this plomeek." She tossed the piece of stem in the recycler, and pushed back a strand of hair that had become loosened in her struggles, wiping the juice from her eyelashes. "The library is full of such books, Vulcan and human. So I have heard, for I have no time for such pursuits."

"The Vulcan books are clan archives. Ancient histories. Philosophical treatises."

"These human books are archaic as well, T'Jar, or they would not be books. I see nothing unusual in a scholar collecting such things."

"But Lady Amanda's books are different," T'Jar insisted. "She has books of fiction."

"Indeed, well…" T'Rueth had succeeded in undoing the rind and was now removing the purple guts of the plomeek, setting aside the firm orange flesh for baking. Last week, she had found a recipe for pumpkin tarts. While she had never seen or tasted pumpkin, the orange coloring in the accompanying illustration had tempted her to try the recipe with plomeek. Both her employers had praised the recipe and she intended to add them to the party delicacies. True, it was not on the list of party dishes, but she saw that she had time to fit in the preparation of a few more items, and she saw no need to bother the Lady Amanda with every detail. The rest of the cooks were doing the Vulcan dishes, but only she felt competent to do those Terran, or quasi-Terran, those she had adapted from a mixture of Terran and Vulcan ingredients and tastes. She was of the mind that at such a mixed gathering, such dishes should be showcased. "I know nothing of human scholarship or of fiction, T'Jar. I have other concerns. Ask the Lady Amanda if you wish to know. Surely you have chores, my girl. Today is hardly the day to ask me foolish questions about Terran books. What could **you** possibly want with Terran books anyway?"

"Yes, T'Rueth." T'Jar drifted away, face flushing, unwilling to answer that. And as to asking Lady Amanda, she hardly dared. It was neither her place nor her business, to bother her lady with her own personal concerns. And as if she could ever dare ask what she truly wished to ask. No, that would be forbidden. But how else would she know?

She sighed, wishing she had never begun her investigations in the library that had started all this. It had begun so innocently. She had merely been …curious about the paper books her lady read before she slept. As if they were a Terran equivalent to meditation rites. As she tidied her lady's things, she had picked up the books, and looked at the printed words on the paper pages. They were so archaic Misinterpreting her curiosity, Amanda had casually suggested Alice in Wonderland, something she'd thought was appropriate to a young Vulcan girl, both for the sense of wonder and the logical trivia. Had found the book for her and handed it to her saying her son had liked it. And almost as an afterthought, had given her a blithe and absentminded _carte_ _blanche_ to use her library as she chose.

T'Jar had at first not thought to take advantage of such leave. But she had dutifully read Alice in Wonderland. And it had, indeed, been wonderful. And then, given there was a continuing volume, and one must, after all be thorough, she had taken advantage of Amanda's leave to go to the library and read Through the Looking Glass. Seeing a second set in French, a language in which she had wanted practice, she had read it again. It had made it …easier…to justify such an illogical action in her mind, to read the same book twice. She could…almost…understand why her lady continued to reread books she had previously read. These were not merely books of fact, that once read, were consigned to memory. They were …something else. She hadn't quite known what. They took one on a journey. And if the journey was pleasant, who would fault taking it twice, the second time to understand it better? But twice was as much as she could justify in her own logical mind. And not wishing to bother her lady to make further recommendations, so busy was she that she had little time to read her own books, T'Jar had put aside further interest.

It might have ended there. But T'Rueth's project to go through their lady's culinary books, to glean such recipes as might be found useful to Vulcan tastes had begun in earnest. T'Jar had been sent frequently to the huge library to regularly pull cookbook after cookbook down for T'Rueth's perusal. And pouring through the stacks, day after day, she had lost her sense of their strangeness. T'Jar had necessarily to pass many other books. She had become intrigued by those she passed on the way to the cookbook section. The colorful bindings and covers, the intriguing titles. The temptation was too much. She had been curious. And after all, she had her lady's permission. And was not IDIC a very important philosophy, worthy of every Vulcan's attention? She had begun to dip into intriguing volumes.

What she found had fascinated her. Even after T'Rueth had finished her recipe project, T'Jar had continued her visits and her surreptitious sampling. Some of the stories, of adventure, of war, she found shocking to her Vulcan sensibilities, for even if fiction, these were not stories of ancient warrior Vulcans, long before Surak's reforms, but of humans, emotionally essentially as they were today.

Then purely by accident, she had read a story of human love. It had been wonderful. In some respects like Alice in Wonderland, but it was a wonderland of a different kind. A wonderland of passion. T'Jar had been shocked in a different way. But also enthralled. Though all knew of Vulcan passion, it was seldom discussed, much less celebrated in Vulcan history or Vulcan texts. But it seemed humans did discuss, even dwell on such passions. Since then she had been reading stories of love almost exclusively. At first, she had brought her books to the kitchen table, as she had Alice in Wonderland. She'd read them around the other staff, even as T'Rueth paged through her recipes and the other aides and guards and servants walked in and out. No one had taken notice, perhaps thinking she was helping T'Rueth. No one, that is, except for the burly Sascek. Since he guarded their lady, he was often about, and seemed to be forever in the kitchen, underfoot where he could hardly be wanted, treading in sand on just cleaned floors, or cleaning his weapons or eating. He was forever eating. Just yesterday, he had observed with unVulcan dissatisfaction that her nose was lately always in an archaic book. But she took no notice of him, difficult as it was to avoid taking notice of someone who took up so much space and created so much mess.

Now that she had begun reading love stories, she had become somewhat self conscious, of her interest, perhaps of her expressions as she read, the eagerness with which she turned the pages to discover each new scene. She found it hard to tear herself away from the stories. She wanted to read passages over and over, even though her eidetic memory consigned them instantly to recall. She grew impatient if she was interrupted at a crucial point of the plot. She had found herself beginning to not merely read, but imagine herself in the plots. Wish for some of what she was reading, for herself. And that had taken her aback. She realized she had become somewhat…undisciplined. It was time for her to regain her Vulcan control.

She had decided after the last volume, that she had to reconsider her actions. Resist the temptation to indulge further. It was very well for the Lady Amanda who was human. As a Vulcan, T'Jar resolved to make no more visits to the stacks in search of Terran fiction. She shelved her book determined not to indulge further and to avoid future temptation if at all possible. Fortunately T'Rueth had finished her recipe research, and T'Jar would no longer be tempted by visiting the library. So she decided her visit to the stacks that morning would be the last, and once returned, she vowed to indulge no more. Even though, returning it, she'd seen several books whose titles practically begged to be taken down, opened and read.

But she was resolved. She resisted the temptation. She would not visit the library again.

She congratulated herself on that resolve though her day's work. Arriving in the kitchen for afternoon tea, her plan proved to be short-lived. She had thought to go unnoticed among all the staff borrowed from the palace, but T'Rueth had eyes as sharp as her knives. "There you are, my girl," T'Rueth was surrounded by more tools of her trade, bowls and batters, fruits peeled and chopped and divested of their rinds, and was directing as well the labors of a host of others. "before you start your tea, I would have you run up to the library and bring me down Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management."

T'Jar regarded her with something close to dismay. "I've always thought you managed this household very well," she offered faintly.

"I wish to consult something in reference to this evening's gathering. Mind your hands are clean, now."

T'Jar cleaned her already spotless hands, using the delay to strengthen her resolve. "Do you wish to see?" she asked, offering them in an attempt to delay further.

"Go on with you," T'Rueth said, re-sharpening a cleaver worthy enough to serve a Klingon berserker and gestured T'Jar along with it, absentmindedly brandishing it like a warrior about to do battle. "I haven't time; I have twelve dozen tarts to make." She tossed the cleaver on the chopping block with a practiced thwack beside a basket of lemons, tartward bound.

T'Jar sighed and went, as resigned to her doom as the lemons. And fate would have it that to find the book T'Rueth wanted, she had to pass very near one of the books that had called to her before. She snatched it almost resentfully from the shelf as she passed and resolved, on the way to put it in her quarters, to read only one chapter. Just to prove to herself what Terran nonsense it was. She would read it in her quarters, in lieu of tea, so that she could not be absconded with for more errands, and then slip it back into the library before she could be missed from her duties.

Leaving Mrs. Beeton in the kitchen with T'Rueth, she didn't find it difficult to slip another book past her. The cook was so busy in her preparations she barely raised her head from her pyramid of fruit to acknowledge T'Jar. But attempting to slip back to her rooms to peruse her own book, T'Jar encountered a less oblivious obstacle. Sascek caught her as she was hurrying back to the staff wing. "T'Jar. I was coming to find you. There is something I would discuss with you. Would you care to meet me for a walk through the gardens this evening?"

T'Jar's eyes widened. "My lady's gardens? They will be in use by the guests."

"The guests will all in at dinner for the period I am considering. The gardens will be empty. Why should we not view them? They have been made particularly beautiful for the party."

"Won't you be working?"

"Sedet will be covering Sarek," Sascek said. "Lady Amanda will be with Sarek. All the guests are security cleared. Too obvious a security presence would be considered a diplomatic insult. Therefore, I will have minimal duties once the guests are within."

"I see. However, I have other plans for this evening."

Sascek gave the volume she held a dark look. "More of your Terran books?"

"**That** is not your concern," T'Jar said, stung and guilty. He **would** notice

"What can a bound attendant want with Terran fiction?" Sascek asked, "You are not a diplomat or a scholar or an ethologist. You are not Terran. Such things are not for you, T'Jar."

T'Jar folded the book more tightly against her, the color rising in her cheeks. "T'Rueth reads Terran books."

"She is reading cookbooks. For her profession."

"You seem to appreciate the results of her study." T'Jar accused.

"That is beside the point. What can result from **your **study?" Sascek asked. "For what purpose do **you** read this Terran nonsense?"

"I would like to hear you tell the Lady Amanda her books are nonsense," T'Jar flared.

"What is not nonsense to a human must be nonsense to a Vulcan. This is not for Vulcans. It is not for **us**, T'Jar."

"Us? There is no **us**. I am not your employee, Sascek. I am not your concern. It is not your responsibility to oversee how I spend my time. You overreach yourself. T'Rueth is my immediate superior. And the lady Amanda."

"Does she know how you spend your time?"

"I have the Lady Amanda's leave to read her books."

"I meant T'Rueth."

"If T'Rueth and the Lady Amanda read her books, so can I." She straightened. "Anyway, just because your services will not be needed this evening, doesn't mean that my time is equally unoccupied. I **will** be working, Sascek."

"You might have said so at first," he grumbled.

"Had you not insulted me _at first_, I might have been able to," she said haughtily. "I am not at leisure this evening."

Sascek stiffened and his voice took on an injured tone. "Then you will excuse me." He turned his broad back on her, and strode away.

T'Jar looked after him, and then down at her book. If he had not insulted her reading… Oh, but he **was** a nuisance. Always underfoot, especially when he was least wanted. She moved in the opposite direction from him, dismissing him from her thoughts, eager to read a chapter of her book. Or possibly two.

_To be continued_

8


	4. Chapter 4

**Library Pass**

**B y**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 4**

Ev'ry teddy bear who's been good  
Is sure of a treat today.

Always before one of the diplomatic receptions she periodically gave, Amanda would be rushing breathlessly around the house, caught up in final preparations. But upon arriving home, Sarek had to search for her and when he finally found her, she was standing on their balcony. She had yet to change from casual clothes to her party gown, watching as some staff hooked up strings of sparkling lights around one of the fountains, looking as if time weighed heavier on her than her elaborate hairstyle.

"You seem…unusually at leisure, my wife," he ventured. "If it were not for the activities of the staff, I would think I had mistaken the date."

"The staff is precisely why I am at leisure," Amanda said ruefully. "She won't let me do anything. It's 'not suitable.'. All I'm allowed to do now is give orders. As if I were you." Amanda waved an arm over the courtyard where a swarm of staff were putting the final touches on the party preparations, 'I say go and they goeth'."

Sarek glanced at her, startled. "Surely you do not wish her to go."

Amanda sighed in exasperation. "It was a biblical allusion. Contrariwise, I say come and they runneth. The earth – at least this part of Vulcan – trembles when I speak. Like I said, as if I were you."

"I am not known to make such dramatic gestures. And she is your household staff. Such is as it should be."

"Except she's in such a state I'm afraid to say much of anything. And heaven help me if I try to actually **do** anything."

Sarek paused. "Are you concerned about this evening?"

"No of course not. But, Sarek, it really is just a party. Not a Romulan invasion. Attila the Hun would have nothing on T'Rueth."

"I have attended some diplomatic parties, Amanda, where one could think otherwise."

Amanda laughed and turned from her dark study of the earnest staff. "Let's hope tonight's not one of them. No, my husband, with T'Rueth's – and the staff's help – we are going to have a nice, orderly, peaceful party. With the guests inspired by our staffs' Vulcan control. I hope."

"Indeed," Sarek said.

xxx

The guests had arrived and the old Fortress was aswirl with beings from dozens of worlds.

Sent on an errand to pick petals to garnish one of T'Rueth's last minute desserts, T'Jar went to the rose gardens, basket in hand. She was well aware that T'Rueth was waiting for her, but still it was hard to hurry, given there was so much of interest to see. She had never seen the gardens lit up for a party and she was a little dazzled. Fairy lights twinkled everywhere, aliens of every form in party dress added to the make believe atmosphere, music of subtle key and restrained melody whispered among the rustling leaves and vied with the tinkling spray of fountains. She saw a group of heliobeings, entranced by the party lights, or perhaps just the starlight, unfolding their wings and gliding over the rose beds, just under the forcescreens. Some newtmen reclined around one of the pools, and as she passed, a pair of them were tempted to enter the warm water, their leathery skin glistening as they splashed and dove, while the others, deeply engaged in conversation, occasionally forgot their manners enough to snap at some of the ornamental fish. She shuddered in horror as she saw one absentmindedly munching on one, the bright tail flickering briefly on his lips, while the other hissed that the fish were not party favors, but **pets**, causing the first to hastily swallow the creature. Two Andorians stood huddled in a corner, their antenna entwined. And T'Jar had to step aside abruptly, as Ambassador M'Rawth hissed, spat, and ran past, on all fours. But it appeared she was in high spirits, or perhaps jest. After a brief gambol around the garden, her tail waving like a flag, she returned to the group she'd been conversing with, which included a pair of Vulcans and a Tellurite. It was all too strange and beautiful. T'Jar could almost imagine herself on Earth, or some other planet, rather than on Vulcan. Surely no other employment in the universe could compare to the delights of working here.

So she dawdled, using the excuse she must pick just the right hue and shade of petal, the exact moment of freshness. Nibbling on a few herself as she walked along.

And then came a sight that might have been transported from one of the archaic fiction books she'd been reading. Along a bend in the path, where a statue had been set into a clipped alcove, were a couple in very close embrace. The woman leaned against the statue, looking almost of a pair, except one was a living example of human beauty and the other was stone. And the man was pressed against her. Far too close for Vulcan sensibilities. He murmured something to her that even T'Jar could not hear, so low pitched was his voice. But she caught the persuading tone of it. And then he …kissed her.

He kissed the girl. T'Jar stood in shock, thrilled, a tableau from her romance reading acted out in flesh and blood, a half eaten rosebud forgotten on her lips. It was one thing to read of such things, but here, before her eyes, she was seeing it. She had thought, had half suspected she had seen Sarek kiss Amanda by the gate, but then she had talked herself out of that supposition. Sarek was Vulcan. Surely he would not do so. She had not seen it clearly. But here, before her eyes, were two beings, in the flesh not on dusty pages, actually kissing. She drew a surreptitious step closer, as enthralled as if this were a fictional tableau. The woman made some comment, T'Jar could not exactly hear, and then, while T'Jar waited in anticipation for the kiss to be renewed, drawing in a breath of delight, the woman drew back her hand and…and slapped the man. T'Jar gasped and put a hand to her cheek at the same time the man put his hand to his own. He didn't seem terribly upset at the rejection of his suit, judging by his amused smirk as he turned to watch the girl walk away. Then, as his shoulders swung around, as if he felt her wondering stare, or heard her gasp of dismay, he turned and looked in her direction. She drew back behind the plant she'd been crouching behind, but he saw her, met her eyes and then winked at her. And then, he crooked his finger and gestured her over in a way even she could understand. She gasped, the rosebud still on her lips dropping unheeded to the ground, her basket falling from her arm. It rolled under the bushes into the darkness while the rose petals drifted like confetti over her feet. She didn't bother to retrieve her basket or go back for more petals, but fled back to the safety of the kitchen, hearing his laughter ringing in her ears. She arriving breathless and green-faced to find the cook making final arrangements to the desert dishes.

She stood in the doorway, trying to order her expression and even her respiration, which was strangely agitated.

"Where have you been, T'Jar? I have had to send a guardsman to gather me fresh rose petals. And those he brought me were entirely in appropriate as to the hue I wished." She looked up. "But it was as well I did, for you have brought me none. What have you been doing, girl?"

"I…I got lost."

"You got lost? Going to the rose gardens, to which you've been dozens of times?"

"It all is so strange, decorated for the party."

"Never mind, child, the guests are gathering for dinner, and I have no time for your curious ways."

"T'Rueth," T'Jar sank onto a kitchen stool and watched the cook as she made final preparations to her dishes. "Do you not find this …gathering…not according to our beliefs?"

"What beliefs are those?"

"Why, well," T'Jar floundered, "…in… logic….and…and well, in peace and logic."

T'Rueth continued her inventory as hordes of waiters came in, snatched up fresh platters of appetizers, leaving their empty trays. "In peace and logic?" T'Rueth repeated absently. "In PreReform times it was not unusual for such a gathering to end in a brawl in the Great Hall, or with lirpas drawn. Unless our present guests have begun such," she looked up and tilted her head absently, listening, "and from what I hear they are not so engaged, it seems this gathering **is** peaceful. As well it should be. Much preparation has gone into making the setting harmonious for all in attendance."

"It is hardly logical."

T'Rueth shrugged. "Logic is neither here nor there with outworlders."

"These outworlders behave…very strangely. I wonder why they must …come **here** with their illogical behavior. Can they not stay in their offices at the Terran Embassy, or the Federation Center?"

"My girl, I am neither a diplomat nor a politician," T'Rueth said, finally exasperated at this line of questioning "Nor wish to be. Or care to understand their roles. I am a cook. It is for Sarek to decide what is suitable in such affairs—and when to bring them here. But it seems logical to me to meet with those whom one must negotiate."

"But they are not…merely meeting."

"Whether they are dueling lirpas in the Great Hall or eating the tablecloth instead of the entrée is no concern of yours, my girl. Or of mine and I care not. You are not the host or hostess. You have your own duties. Which you have been delinquent in performing."

"Yes, T'Rueth," T'Jar said, chastened.

"Now go and get me those rose petals."

"Surely you have enough," T'Jar protested. "The guests are even now to be served."

"Once the guests are served, we'll sit down to our own dinner. And why should the staff not have petals as fresh as the guests? They are our rose gardens."

"But--" she hesitated at going back into the gardens, where that human might still linger.

"Go. Don't dawdle this time, my girl."

T'Jar grabbed another basket and headed for the gardens, looking uneasily around her for _**that** human_. On the way, she encountered Sascek.

When he saw her, he took a step toward her, then stopped. "T'Jar, are you still working?"

She gestured with her basket. "As you can see."

Sascek stiffened. "Then I will not disturb you. Excuse me."

Out of the corner of her eye, T'Jar saw _**that** human_ still lurking among the roses, and she edged a step closer to Sascek, letting his burly form camouflage her. "No. It is all right." She looked up at him, seeing as if anew the benefits of his imposing presence. Usually all she noticed was how much sand his huge feet tracked inside. But already _**that** human_, eyeing the Vulcan guard, was drifting away. "You can accompany me."

Sascek straightened, giving her a startled look. "Truly?"

"Yes. I am only going to pick petals for our dinner." She ducked under a fairy light draped arch to the cutting section of the rose garden and checked to make sure the human really wasn't following them. He wasn't. But that didn't mean there weren't others in the gardens. Perhaps all humans were like such as he. She shivered at that.

They picked petals together in silence for a while, Sascek glancing at her uneasily, before he ventured, "T'Jar, there is a question, I have been …desirous to ask of you."

"Of me?" T'Jar had recovered some of her equilibrium. The gardens were deserted of guests; they must all now be gathered for dinner, and she was feeling rather foolish to have so begged his presence. "Surely Sascek, you think too highly of your **own** opinion to be interested in mine."

"I asked pardon for my words before, T'Jar. Can you not excuse them?"

T'Jar sighed. "What is it you wish of me?"

"T'Jar. I wished to say…." He drew a breath and gathered his courage. "We are neither of us highly born."

She looked at him, astonished. "**This** comment is how you seek pardon?"

"Yes, what else?"

"What indeed?"

"In that I mean our parents have had no dynastical requirements to consider in regard to our future," Sascek said, exasperated. "We were not bonded as children, but have leave to make our **own** way."

"I hardly think **my way** is any of **your** concern."

"I could make it my concern," Sascek suggested.

"You concern yourself too much of my doings as it is," T'Jar huffed. "I weary of your lectures. And your rude and insulting comments."

"I am merely saying that neither you nor I are bonded," Sascek tried again.

"Imagine my astonishment that **you, **with your charming remarks, and your huge feet, and your overbearing ways, are yet unbonded."

"Nor are you," Sascek retorted.

"I have no wish or desire to be bonded at this time," T'Jar said. "Nor have I seen anyone I care to bond with."

Sascek drew himself up. "Perhaps it is time to return. We have picked enough petals."

"Indeed." T'Jar returned.

xxx

Amanda stood, peering down the length of fairy lights strung along one of the garden paths.

"Amanda?" Sarek came up behind her, touching her on the shoulder.

She jumped. "You startled me."

"What are you doing here?" Sarek asked, bemused. "The guests are gathering for dinner. You have been missed."

"Oh, Mariette said that Legate Gordon was playing his usual kissing games here somewhere. She slapped him, rake that he is, but she said as she was left he was going after some other guest, though she didn't see who. I was going to shoo him back to civilization before he causes a real scandal."

"Vulcan offers him few opportunities for such behavior. But you need not be concerned, I just saw him gathering for dinner with the other guests."

"Don't you know that was why he was sent to Vulcan? He got himself in some sort of scandal at his last posting, and was sent here because they thought he'd have less temptations." She shivered a little in the cool breeze. Hot as Vulcan could be in daylight, when the sun went down, it seemed to take all the warmth out of the thin air. "I'm beginning to think either I was right or T'Rueth was right."

"What do you mean?"

"That we've given too many little subdued corners in which people can…tryst. We either should have stuck with my plan of only lighting the formal gardens and courtyard, or we should have gone with T'Rueth's 'bright as day' scenario. This compromise is questionable."

Sarek surveyed the lighting as of for the first time. "I tend to disagree. Few of our guests are like Legate Gordon. And I have never noticed before how …charming…such lighting is. I tend to favor it."

She gave him a look askance. "Well now is not the time to notice it. We do happen to have a couple of hundred guests."

"Indeed," Sarek reached out and teased a curl that had fallen from his wife's upswept hairstyle. "None in the immediate vicinity, however. And you do owe me from this morning."

"Oh, I do. But now is not the time and this is not the place."

"It is my garden."

"Oh? I thought it was mine."

Sarek gave her a look. "Indeed. But as you also belong to me--"

Amanda drew a breath. "Sarek. I think the lights have gone to your head. This kind of talk--"

"Is very pre-Reform."

"You said it."

"Yet, as you well know, Vulcans…are biologically identical today with their pre-Reform counterparts. Five thousand years is but a blink in evolution."

"Tell that to Surak."

"I'm sure he would understand."

"I'm not sure I do. Yet. Or still. How do you live with all the contradictions, Sarek?"

"Vulcan control is not a biological fact, but a hard won discipline. You, of all people, human or Vulcan, know that."

She looked at him. "I do. But now is a good time to considering practicing it. At least until the guests leave."

"It is just one more kiss."

Her eyes widened. "Oh? Is that all it is?"

"To the roses."

"And to us?"

Sarek half smiled. "I have never kissed you under…fairy lights. And who knows when I will have another opportunity?"

"Sarek!" But then she didn't have breath for any more.

xxx

And two rows of roses behind, T'Jar stood, her mouth agape.

"Sascek," she gasped, "Do you see that!"

Sascek looked, clamped a hand over T'Jar's mouth and pulled her further away down the path.

9


	5. Chapter 5

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 5**

There's lots of marvelous things to eat  
And wonderful games to play.

Across the path, Amanda wrenched back from Sarek. "What was that?" She strained to her above her own breaths in the thin night air. But now she heard nothing but the cry of a distant nightbird.

Sarek blinked. "I obviously wasn't listening. Amanda--"

"It sounded like a voice. Sarek, let's go. We have duties, my husband."

"Very well," Sarek said, "but that is another kiss you owe me, my wife."

"You're never delinquent in collecting your due," Amanda countered.

Their voices faded away.

On the other path of rose hedges, Sascek hesitated, straining his ears. Then when finally convinced that even Vulcan hearing was safe, he let T'Jar go.

"How dare you!" she sputtered, when he'd removed his hand from her mouth. "You great hulking beast!"

"Would you have Sarek know you were watching him? In such private endeavors?"

Reminded of this, T'Jar forgot her quarrel with Sascek, her cheeks coloring at the thought. "But you saw it." T'Jar's almond shaped eyes were as wide as saucers. "You saw them! Sascek, you saw them ki--"

"Yes," Sascek said hastily. "Softly, T'Jar!" He turned his back firmly on their retreating employers and hustled her down the other end of the darkened path, only too well aware of Vulcan hearing, even at this distance. And T'Jar's voice was entirely too unmoderated. He had no desire for Sarek to ever know of this discussion. "You are very young and perhaps you don't understand. As a personal guard, as a personal attendant, one **sees** things. But one doesn't ever --"

T'Jar tried to crane her neck around Sascek's broad back. "But you saw--"

He took her hand and turned her around again. "T'Jar, one **never** looks. Nor is what one sees ever spoken of among the staff. It would be an invasion of their privacy."

T'Jar drew herself up, stung by the implicit criticism in that undeniable fact but discounting it all in light of what she'd seen. And given how much she wished to discuss it. "Oh, that is so unfair!"

Sascek was still in lecturing mode. "Unfair? It is not our business. T'Jar, why are you even interested in--"

"But you saw him," T'Jar insisted, still too stunned to care for discretion. "Kissing her. He **kissed** her, Sascek. Sarek --"

Sascek shrugged, discomfited, but trying not to show it. "What of it? She is a human female. It is the way of her people."

"But **he** is Vulcan." T'Jar said.

"She follows Vulcan ways in many respects. Is it not logical for him to acknowledge something of her customs?"

T'Jar considered that, looking crestfallen. "Logical. Oh."

"It does not make Sarek less Vulcan, less of a leader, to respects his wife's human ways."

"But they are not **our** ways," T'Jar said, almost as if she wished to hear it countered.

"No. Of course not. **We** are Vulcan." Sascek was smugly superior. "We have no need for such doings."

"Can we learn nothing from humans?"

"What would you wish to learn?" Sascek asked, taken aback.

T'Jar looked wistfully after the pair. "Oh, I could never ask him, anyway."

"To ask Sarek? What would you wish to ask him?"

"You – you wouldn't understand." T'Jar looked down at her basket. "T'Rueth will be displeased that I have delayed so long in getting these to her. We should go. I should go.

"T'Jar," Sascek began...

Sedet appeared around the corner. "Sascek, you are here. We are going to do a final sweep of the grounds to ensure all is secure and the guests are all in the main hall at their dinner before taking our own."

"I must go, I have duties, " T'Jar said, and flew to the kitchens.

And Sascek looked after her, his black eyes narrowed.

xxx

The evening wore on, though there was no moon to wax and wane. T'Rueth's dinner was a smashing success to all palates, and the cook believed herself vindicated. Flushed with triumph, she was already planning what she would do next time. Amanda had passed onto her more than a dozen requests for recipes. And when Amanda had confirmed to the amazed guests who wished to know who had catered the delicious dinner that her own staff had prepared it, T'Rueth herself had received three surreptitious offers of employment from other embassies, one even requiring future travel to another planet, from those who believed the loyalty and labor of Vulcan attendants could be purchased for mere wages. She would have to ask her lady how to refuse those without offense. But she felt she had vindicated her own position, and went off to her own bed, exhausted but assured of her reputation. And the reputation of Vulcan superiority in such doings.

The last hour of the party Amanda and Sarek spent taking leave of each guest, even as they had welcomed them in the first. As they were bidding the Tellurite Ambassador to Vulcan goodbye, Amanda nudged her husband and whispered, at a pitch for his ears alone, "He looks something like a Teddy Bear, don't you think?"

Sarek gave her a reproving look but commented, "Would he and his kind be only as amenable." To which she laughed. Everyone knew Tellurites were always up for an argument, and Gonosh was no exception, his strident voice heard arguing from one end of the table to the other. She always pled forgiveness in advance to whomever she partnered him with at table for that reason alone.

Eventually, the majority of the guests had left, leaving, as is always the case, those few counted as friends and long time allies. They ended up out by Amanda's pool, for the Newtonian Ambassador Narvon was most comfortable in Vulcan's heat when he was wet. While he floated, and Amanda, removing her sandals, dangled her feet in the water,they talked such shop talk as Federation leaders will, upcoming legislation and strategies, High Council issues and new planetary admissions. After a while even those old friends felt the evening's passing and then, after Narvon had hauled himself out of the pool, his skin sagging with dampness, but cheerfully refreshed, and the Helio ambassador Ning unwound herself from the bougainvillea trellis where she'd been most agreeably perched, the last aircar went winking through the night air. And they were, finally, alone.

Amanda drew a deep breath when it finally disappeared. "Well, we got through that."

"It was your usual success, was it not?" Sarek enquired. "Even by human standards. Everyone seemed to," he hesitated over the word but then went for it, "…enjoy themselves."

"It was. I won't deny it. T'Rueth really outdid herself."

"As I told you, my wife, controlled and logical Vulcan attendants will prove worthy in the end."

"So you said." Amanda sighed deeply. "But I'm glad it's over. Hosting these things is like mixing matter and antimatter." She gave him a look. "And you were certainly no help at one point. Honestly, Sarek, sometimes I think you are a danger junkie."

"A what?"

"Someone who enjoys taking risks, for the adrenalin rush."

"Vulcans do not metabolize adrenaline, Amanda."

"Huh," she huffed. "You could have fooled me. Either all these aliens are a bad influence on you, or you're absolutely right about those five thousand years of evolution not being long enough."

"At times, Vulcan discipline does seem to lack something of efficacy," Sarek remarked.

"Can you at least wait until we get upstairs?"

"Actually," Sarek flushed a little, "It has been a long evening, my wife. And I was so engrossed in conversing with our guests that--"

"You didn't eat dinner."

"No," Sarek confessed. "I did not."

"I thought so. Want to raid the kitchen?"

"I am very hungry," he admitted.

"I'm sure there must be something left, even after all these…ravenous hordes. T'Rueth made enough that we'll be eating leftovers for weeks. Come and let's see what sort of dent you can make in them." Amanda led the way.

xxx

Having helped with the final security sweep after the last guests had departed, somewhat delayed since the Helio Ambassador's consort had gotten a little tipsy on honeysuckle nectar and needed assistance in being taken home, Sascek came back to the kitchen. It was empty except for T'Jar. Sascek glanced around regardless. "All the guests have departed."

"And the staff as well. T'Rueth left me to clear." She gave him a look. "I hope you have not come back for another meal, Sascek. I have just finished cleaning up the kitchen."

"I came back to finish our discussion."

"You mean for you to finish telling me how to behave."

"No," he protested. And then… "Well, yes, in some respects. T'Jar, you must know your behavior was improper."

She colored a pale chartreuse. "I do not see how it was so very improper. I had every right to be where I was. It is not as if I deliberately invaded their privacy. I did not mean to …look."

Sascek was relieved. Since seeing her this morning watching Sarek, and then again this evening, he had harbored just the trace of a suspicion… After all, there had been T'Lean. "Then you don't want Sarek?"

"Sarek? What ever would I want with Sarek?"

Sascek drew himself up. "But you have been …looking at him. Taking notice of him. In a most improper way."

"Of him? **Him?** Certainly not." She tossed her head. "He is My Lady's bondmate. Do you think I am she who would tread on another's garment?" She shivered slightly. "And he is – he is very **old**, Sascek."

"Old? Sarek is not even of middle age."

"He is too old for me," T'Jar dismissed with the callousness of youth. "He has a son older than me. And he is my Lady's, as she is his. Are you so unseeing, Sascek, that you do not perceive the strength of their bond? "

"So you are not interested in Sarek?" Sascek reiterated. Beginning to hope anew.

"Certainly not! He is committed to another. And even if he were not," she looked thoughtful. "He is a clan leader. He lives a public life. His children of necessity are heirs to the clan."

"Are you thinking of Spock?" Sascek bridled. "You know he is bonded to T'Pring."

"T'Pring!" T'Jar was offended on behalf of her sex. "Highborn or not, **she** is a faithless one. Everyone knows how Stonn attends her. It is the worst sort of scandal; hush it up though they may."

"So you **are** thinking of Spock."

T'Jar's eyes widened at this, as if considering it. "I have seen his holo in my lady's study. He is handsome. Though not so handsome as his father. But he is promised to another. Faithless as T'Pring is, he is hers. And even if he were not, he is too high born for me. I would not consider him, even if he **were** unbonded."

"Indeed. He is not of our caste. Your family have no great wealth or seat in Council to offer his family. Even if he were unbonded. And he is not."

T'Jar tossed her head. "I did not mean that. The lady Amanda is not of Sarek's caste yet he chose her. Does she have wealth or position?"

"Who can know what a human's status is?" Sascek said. "Perhaps she **has** by human standards. Or perhaps she was, as many have said, a treaty gift that he could not refuse. He brought her back from Terra with the Federation treaty."

"Surely not."

"It is a logical assumption. Why else would he take her to wife? A human?"

"Because he loves her. That should be obvious even to you."

Sascek did not even bother to dignify that with a comment.

T'Jar bridled. "Do you think such affection is impossible for a Vulcan?"

"I did not say that."

"You did not say anything." When he continued to say nothing, she persisted. "But you **must** see how he is with her."

"T'Jar, I have told you this is not to be spoken of."

"But do you think it impossible?" T'Jar insisted.

Sascek did not answer for a moment and she drew a breath and turned away from him. "I did not think you so….unregarding"

"Perhaps it **is** provincial in me," Sascek said darkly.

"Provincial?"

"I am sure she has many laudable qualities. She is intelligent. In her human way. And she helps him with his work."

"What are you saying?"

"She is an …odd creature. An inside out creature."

"Sascek, whatever can you mean?"

"Her emotions, that which we keep hidden, are so… flamboyant."

"It is the human way. And he does not seem to mind her emotions."

"Perhaps not. But she is emotional, where we are controlled. And yet, in contrast, her person lacks color. And what color she has is …odd. No doubt she is learned and worthy, but I am grateful to be only a Palace Guard, that I am not required to take such a being to wife." He looked at T'Jar. "What is your interest in the Lady Amanda, if you have no interest in Sarek?"

T'Jar was amazed. "That is why you think his caring is impossible? That she is human?"

"I suppose one could excuse such **eyes** in a bondmate," Sascek grumbled. "Even though they are pale as water. Eyes are not so obvious a feature. But many Terrans have near Vulcan coloring in eyes and hair, and one wonders why he could not pick – or be gifted with -- one at least with some color in her --"

"Among humans her hair is considered a most desirable color. All the books say --"

Sascek glanced at her. "Hair with almost no color at all? Impossible."

"It is called blond. And most desirable among humans, at least by what I have – According to the books, many humans even change their hair to possess that color!"

"If one were to change one's color, it would only be logical to **give** oneself color, not take it away. And well she should do so. She is so pale a thing, one would need Vulcan acuity to **see** her in the dark. I do not envy Sarek such a bondmate."

"You know nothing of human ways. But Sascek, that is not what I was asking. I was asking if you thought--"

"They are not for us, T'Jar. Not Sarek, or the Lady Amanda. I do not want, nor want you, to consider them. Or their son. T'Jar, they will never be your family, if you are thinking of them in that way."

"I am not interested in Spock! Faithless as T'Pring is, he belongs to her and she to him. And Spock is too well born in the sense that his wife is a clan leader by default. I wish to live a private life." Her eyes rose slightly to Sascek. "A very private life. If my bondmate …kissed me, I would not wish it to be …observed. I would not wish to be kissed…behind a door. Or a gate. Or a hedge. While my staff watched, however inadvertently."

Sascek's eyebrows rose. "Do you expect your bondmate to …kiss you? A Vulcan?"

For a moment T'Jar hesitated, and then she countered, "Why not?" she asked. "There is no touching forbidden between bondmates, in private. Never and always touching and touched. That is our way. Does not Sarek kiss the Lady Amanda?"

"Only because kissing is a human gesture. It is an outworlder contamination. Not of our ways."

T'Jar eyed him. "You speak of outworlder contamination to me? Your lady is human. Your profession has you forswear your life to the safety of a human. You speak her language. You will travel to Terra in her service or to other planets in the Federation, whereever she must go. You eat human foods – and seek them out, indeed based on your behavior at table you favor them. How can this single gesture be more of a contamination than all of that? How can their kiss be anything but an expression of IDIC? And…" she hesitated. "An expression of love."

"Love is for humans."

She looked almost wistful, the color rising in her cheeks. "But it appears to be also for **some** Vulcans."

Sascek considered her flushed face. "T'Jar…do you mean that all this time…you have **never** been interested in Sarek?"

"I have never been interested in him."

Sascek paused, disbelieving. "You have instead been interested in this…kissing? That is why you have been watching him?"

"I have not been watching him."

"The evidence--"

"I have never seen a kiss before this evening. I have been interested in …" she hesitated to say it.

"In love?"

"For a moment she resisted the characterization, then she admitted slowly, "I have read some of my Lady's fiction regarding love." She lifted her gaze to Sascek. "I find it…fascinating."

"You wish to bond with a human?" Sascek asked, dismayed. "One of these humans who guested here?"

T'Jar shivered. "No!" She looked at him. "Perhaps as Vulcans, we can not feel human love. But still …I could wish to be …yes, to be kissed…by my bondmate. As my Lady is kissed by hers. That is not impossible for Sarek, so it must be possible for Vulcans. And I would know of it myself."

"You would know of this," Sascek said amazed. "If not from Sarek, and not from a human, than from whom?"

For a moment their eyes met and a wordless look was exchanged between them. Then Sascek drew closer. She raised her face to his. And slowly, gingerly, he bent his head to her. Their lips brushed, retreated, brushed again, and then Sascek brought his mouth down on hers. And she leaned up into his embrace. And in that moment of breathless first kiss came to Sascek the unmistakable sound of a door opening.

Sascek pulled back as if burned. T'Jar had been distracted by an unfamiliar buzzing in her ears as Sascek brought his lips to hers, so she stared bewildered at him.

"T'Jar," he hissed, his face flushed green with embarrassment. "Someone is coming!"

Her eyes went wide with panic. In the next instant, Sascek pulled her against the wall behind the door as it swung open. And Amanda and Sarek walked through.

10

Chapter 5 of 12. To be continued


	6. Chapter 6

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 6**

Beneath the trees where nobody sees  
They'll hide and seek as long as they please  
Cause that's the way the teddy bears have their picnic.

I can't believe you are hungry after all that food floating around at the party," Amanda said. "How could you do that to T'Rueth, who has been cooking up a storm for days? I thought **I** was the one who never ate at parties?" She opened the stasis unit and poked her head inside.

"Like you, I was too engaged keeping our guests in temper." Looking over her shoulder as she rummaged around, Sarek absently twisted a curl loosened from her hairstyle, and then drew it aside. "Hurry, my wife. I am very hungry." He nuzzled her neck. "I am half tempted to begin on you."

"I can see your hunger knows no bounds." She hunched her shoulders. "If you are thinking of giving up your vegetarianism," she teased.

"Only for a certain special dish."

"That tickles – and my hands are full. Could you please wait until after you've eaten? You don't want me to drop your dinner, do you?"

Sarek let her go. "You are quite a tyrant, my wife. Very well, I will desist."

"Next time, take a few minutes to eat something. Our guests can handle that much neglect. Do you want some _chaja_? There's plenty here."

"Even you were forced to police our guests."

"A little. But even Legate Gordon didn't manage to get into too much trouble."

"I suppose they were agreeable enough. But I am pleased, very pleased, to have our household back as our own, quiet and private once again."

"As Jane says, it is always best not to have ones acquaintances **very** agreeable, as it saves one the trouble of liking them a great deal."1

"If **not** liking them a great deal means that we can wait a reasonable time before hosting another such gathering then I concur."

"I think T'Rueth won't approve. Her dishes were praised to the skies and she's already planning to repeat her success." She turned, half a dozen stasis boxes in her hands. "She wrapped everything up before she retired. But I can have this ready in a jiffy."

"I will comment on the dishes after I have eaten. But given our guests left with the same number of limbs and eyes as they arrived with, and in reasonable temper, I would tend to concur the party was a success."

"No one has ever brawled at **our** parties. You wouldn't let them." She laughed and tumbled the boxes on a counter. "I wouldn't let them."

"No, you would not," Sarek said knowingly. "Yet it is hardly unknown at diplomatic functions. But given the level of security I provide, I trust no one ever will."

"Umm, the protector of the peace."

Sarek began to open boxes himself. "Upholding Surak's constructs is part of my role as clan leader. Isn't there any _nakir_?"

"I wish I could say the role suits you well, but I think you really are a Vulcan warrior at heart. I could see you holding back, just itching to give Malkinson what for when he was prating on about Terra's Manifest Destiny. Which is when the _nakir_ disappeared. You missed out on it. It's gone. Malkinson went back at least three times, didn't you notice?"

"I was busy refuting his arguments. He is somewhat sententious."

"Is he?" She tossed him a knowing look. "Perhaps. But he at least took time from refuting **yours** to eat. And that's why he's going to bed with a full stomach, and **you're** hungry. You may have won the argument, Sarek, but you lost the nakir. Is their logic in that? This was a dinner, not a debate."

"Not all debates are on the Council floor. And now I find he is not merely grasping in sectors of space, but greedy in personal habits as well." Amanda laughed again, and Sarek amused as well, half turned to take something from her hand, and caught out of the corner of his eyes the barest flicker of movement, of shadow across the long floor from something hidden behind the door. He went from ease to alertness in a microsecond. He stepped between Amanda and the closed door and for a moment, every muscle tense, he was silent, listening acutely, nostrils flaring, every sense keen, easily blocking Amanda's oblivious prattling response, one of his hands straying almost absently, instinctively toward T'Rueth's rack of cleavers. Then as T'Jar, peering though the door crack, half gasped at that warrior stance, and Sascek froze, recognizing it in turn, Sarek straightened, looking both relieved and puzzled. For a moment, the elder Vulcan stood uncertain, his shoulders relaxing from their previous battle posture, considering the situation. And then he frowned, shaking himself back down from that reflexive battlemode to practical consideration. Shaking his head as well, in almost human exasperation at his own too readily instinctive reflexes in spite of millennia of learned and bred peace. Then shrugging a brow, he caught his wife's hand, interrupting her in mid-word. "Amanda, I believe it is time to retire."

"But you just said you were hungry!" she exclaimed.

"You misunderstood me."

"I did **not**! How can you say--"

"Amanda," Sarek put a finger to her lips, as if to shush her. "It is…**well** past time…to retire."

Her eyes widened. She looked at him a moment, then down at the meal she'd half prepared. "Well…. just let me put this away--"

"Amanda." Sarek shook his head slightly, in gentle reproof. But though his voice was mild, he said it in the emphatic mode. "Now."

"Now?" She stared at him astounded.

"Now." He held out a hand.

She looked at him, shaking her own head in astonishment, but gave him her hand and let him draw her from the room.

On his way out the door, Sarek caught the door handle with his other hand and tugged it, peremptorily and pointedly closed. With just the barest trace of reproof in the near bang of that portal.

On the other side, the two in hiding jumped as the door closed with an audible snap quite unlike their normal clan leader's behavior.

But when the door closed behind him, the pair, freed from their hiding place, if not undetected, then at least undisclosed, looked at each other and as one, released a mutual sigh of relief.

All Vulcan controls to the contrary.

_Continued…_

1 Austen, Jane, Collected Letters, December 24, 1798

4


	7. Chapter 7

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 7**

If you go down to the woods today  
You'd better not go alone.

The two young Vulcans waited breathlessly, listening to their employer's retreating footsteps.

"Do you think he will come back?" T'Jar whispered.

"I think …not," Sascek said, though sounding uncertain. "He was undoubtedly as regretful to have invaded our privacy as we were to have intruded on his."

"We should not have hidden."

"Would you have him – them – see us engaged in such activities?"

"We had finished our duties for the evening. Our time was surely our own." She looked at him. "Do you think what we did was so very shameful?"

Sascek just looked at her doubtfully. "I am sorry, T'Jar."

"Sorry you kissed me?"

"You had said you did not wish to be kissed behind a door. And the very first kiss--"

T'Jar daringly put a hand to his chest. "So long as it is not the last."

Sascek eyed her. "As a clan leader, Sarek **is** supposed to be an example for his people."

"He has always seemed an excellent leader to me."

Sascek drew a deep breath. "They have gone to their suite," he suggested, _sotto_ _voice_. "The gardens will be empty."

"The gardens are full of roses," T'Jar countered. "And roses have thorns. I don't like thorns. I have received enough rose scratches this evening, picking petals. I can't understand what my lady sees in such…barbaric flowers."

"They are good to eat," Sascek suggested. "Perhaps that is why she has so many."

"You are always thinking of your stomach. She doesn't care to eat them. Have you ever seen her eat one?"

"No," he admitted.

"Though the books consider such flowers --"

Sascek wasn't interested in more about books or Terran flowers. "We can't stay **here**. Anyone could come in. **They** could come **back. **Perhaps Sarek will, once he sees the Lady Amanda to her suite. To deal with us."

"The parapets--"

"And the security programs will certainly record us. Sarek has directed only he has leave to wander there after nightfall. He doesn't wish to be disturbed in his meditations."

"Perhaps we could walk in the desert, near the boundary fences. There is an ancient guard post--"

"We could be mistaken for a trespassing lematya, and darted. The security programs--"

"The library," T'Jar offered.

"The library?"

"Why not? It is an excellent place for …research. I have Lady Amanda's leave to go there whenever I choose. And there are many things I would …read to you."

"You wish to read to me?"

"Between kisses." T'Jar said primly.

Sascek drew a sharp breath and took her hand in his. "Let's go."

"Wait," T'Jar ran back to the kitchen, putting away the remnants of Sarek's aborted meal.

"T'Jar, what are you doing?"

"T'Rueth would be displeased if I failed to clear. It is one of my duties."

"But T'Rueth is not to know we were here! After Sarek had come!"

"Well," T'Jar said, closing the stasis unit with a 'that's that' gesture. "Now there is no evidence anyone was here."

"But Sarek was here!"

T'Jar met his eyes. "And he knows we – or someone – was here."

"If you clear, that tells him who it was."

"If he was going to …reveal our presence, he would have when he noticed we were behind the door."

"Perhaps he avoided it because of the Lady Amanda's presence." Sascek looked uneasy. "Perhaps we'll be reprimanded tomorrow."

"Perhaps he was just respecting our privacy," T'Jar said. "We would not have been hiding behind a door if what we had been doing was not private. He undoubtedly understands that. Perhaps as no one else does."

"I still believe--"

"But if we **are** to be reprimanded," T'Jar said. "It might as well be for **doing** something."

Sascek couldn't fault the logic in that. And at that, decided she was right. "Let's go." They were half way out the door when she suddenly ran back.

"T'Jar, what are you doing **now**?" Sascek asked, watching frustrated as she snagged a kitchen towel. "What's that for?" he asked, looking puzzled.

"It is as my Lady once told me. The library is a spill free zone."1

Sascek looked mystified but he grabbed another towel for good measure and followed T'Jar as they surreptitiously climbed the stairs.

_To be continued…_

1 Holography 3, As a Reminder and a Promise

4


	8. Chapter 8

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 8**

It's lovely down in the woods today  
But safer to stay at home.

"Sarek," Amanda spared him a glance, but once he had closed the bedroom doors behind them, he'd lost something of his uneasy air, and seemed calm and even indifferent as he undressed, "why did you pull me out of there, and so abruptly? I **know** you said you were hungry. And not **this** kind of hungry. And T'Rueth is going to kill me for leaving a mess in her kitchen."

"It is **our** kitchen. Despite all evidence to the contrary," Sarek said, a trifle wryly, pulling his tunic over his head, and thinking about what he'd just encountered. He repressed a growl from his stomach and further considered his unsatisfied hunger. "**Ours**."

"What's that's supposed to mean?" She asked, startled.

"It is of no consequence. And no, she will not." He shucked his pants and tossed his discarded clothes into the 'fresher, on the way to take a brief sonic shower.

"Still, it's not like you at all to change your mind like that," Amanda called after him.

"You have often stated it is your right to …'change your mind', Amanda," he said, re-entering the room. "I have previously noted your very quixotic behavior."

"Quixotic, am I?" she repeated, not quite sure if she should be offended at that characterization. And decided she didn't have the energy. Still… "I don't think I'm so very--"

"Do I not have equal rights?"

"**You** want equal rights?" she asked, astonished. "In **this** marriage? Oh, my." She shook her head, now amused, "Be careful what you wish for my very Vulcan husband," she teased. "You might not like what you get. What's sauce for the gander is very much sauce for the goose."

"Must I remind you that Vulcans are vegetarians?" He came up behind her, skin glowing slightly green from the sonics. "In this household, neither the gander nor the goose is to be…sauced. Though the goose in question can be very saucy."

She laughed. "No more puns, you do them very ill. Anyway, the right to illogically change one's mind is characteristically relegated to females. **Human** females. You," she looked his naked form up and down, "are disqualified on **both** criteria. Unequivocally disqualified. Not that I would have it any other way."

"So I see that I am to be un-emancipated in this regard."

Amanda gave him a look. "My dear husband, if you were any more emancipated, **I'd** be an Orion slave girl."

"A very tempting thought," he helped her undo her gown, massaging her shoulders. "I shall seek to further emancipate myself immediately."

"Um…" she half closed her eyes, wondering if all Vulcans had magic fingers, or if she was just lucky in that regard. "Not that I'm saying I would be an **unhappy** Orion slave girl. In fact, rather the opposite."

"There are certain advantages to such …companions." He dropped a kiss on the nape of her neck. "How does one go about it?"

"Sarek," She shook her head, shivering a little at a further line of kisses. "You had your chance for a chattel, my dear. And you blew it."

"Very true. Yes. Yet there are times when I …almost…regret that myself."

"Do you indeed?" She arched her head to better accommodate that advancing line. "Well, if I were an Orion slave girl, I'd spend my life in bed and never have to organize any more of these diplomatic parties. That alone is a tempting job description."

"I think I prefer you human, my wife. But were you a chattel, you would have less clothing to remove." The line stopped at the fastening of her gown. "A considerable advantage, given you undress almost as slowly as you dress, my wife. You are a continual test and trial to my patience."

She drew a breath, tossing him a look over her shoulder. "Sometimes I wonder about you. Your veneer of civilization can at times be almost too thin to hide the Vulcan warrior underneath." She paused, considering that. "Though there are times when I almost regret that myself."

"What very illiberal views you hold, Amanda. I had no idea you were so…chauvinistic."

"You really are asking for trouble, aren't you?" Amanda asked. "Not yet," she said as his fingers went to the fastening. "It's chilly in here. I want to take down my hair first." Sarek shifted his tactics and began taking the pins from her hair.

She worked away at the pins too. "The presence of all those humans with their licentious ways was clearly a bad influence on you."

"Not merely on me," Sarek said, thinking wryly of his overpopulated kitchen.

"Perhaps we should have fewer parties." She tossed him a look. "Or perhaps we should have **more**."

"That depends on what trouble you intend," Sarek said, working to undo a stubborn ornament.

"Ouch, oh, thanks. The trouble I intend doesn't even begin to address the trouble you deserve. Sarek, remind me never to use this clasp again; it always pinches."

Sarek responded by tossing the offending clasp in the recycler.

Amanda made an aborted grab, but his reflexes were excellent, his aim was impeccably accurate, and the clasp sailed with Vulcan precision exactly through the center of the slot, and was immediately reduced to its essential atoms. "**Why** did you do that?" she asked, abashed and dismayed.

Sarek regarded her curiously. "If you never intend to further use it, it was pointless to retain it. Why should I then remind you of its inefficiency? It was logical to discard it."

"It was a perfectly good clasp. It was **pretty**. I **liked** it. It just pinches."

"Your statements, taken as a whole, are rife with illogic."

"You didn't have to throw away my clasp. In some things, you know human females have their own logic."

"So I have discovered. To my occasional dismay."

"Like I said before, you blew that chance. Too late to complain how you're treated."

"My apologies. However, I would prefer to quote from your favorite author and reiterate that 'I always deserve the best treatment, for I never accept any other.'" He drew her hair to one side to facilitate undoing her gown, folding her hand over the long strands to hold it in place.

Amanda laughed. "The latter part is certainly true."

Sarek paused in undoing her gown. "You are not too tired from the party?"

She tilted her head to give him better access, closing her eyes as Sarek drew down the fastening, shivering a little as he followed it with a finger, tracing down her spine. "Actually, I must confess that I hardly had to **do** anything for the party."

"I see yet another advantage to having servants, my wife. The innumerable ways it frees my wife for other…chores." Having undone her gown, he drew it from her, and replaced fingers with lips.

Amanda shivered at the feel of his warm breath and as he straightened and drew her hair back over the just kissed area, turned her head to give her husband better access to her throat. "So making love to one's wife is a chore, is it?"

"In the sense that one knows that in a disciplined individual chores must always be performed regularly, attentively…and with all due diligence." Sarek punctuated the phrases with kisses.

Amanda closed her eyes, almost too lost to murmur, "So **that's** what I like about Vulcan disciplines."

"And I as well," Sarek answered. "Indeed."

"I knew there was something…Oh…" Amanda sighed as he picked her up. And then they were too busy for words.

_To be continued…_

5


	9. Chapter 9

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 9**

Beneath the trees where nobody sees  
They'll hide and seek as long as they please  
Cause that's the way the teddy bears have their picnic.

It's cold in here," Sascek complained, standing shivering in the entrance to the media center, to which he had never been. "And humid."

"It is not difficult to adapt to it."

Sascek shivered again. "I will reset the environmental controls."

"No," T'Jar covered his hand with hers. "It might show on the computer systems. Let us just open a window. I know a place, in the stacks, by a window. It will serve us well."

Sascek hesitated, regarding the room doubtfully. "Won't opening the window be recorded as well?"

"I …don't know," T'Jar admitted. "But I have sometimes seen my Lady do it, so it cannot be forbidden. And it may be overlooked as it is something she would do."

"Perhaps we should not be here," Sascek said.

"We cannot go to the guard barracks," T'Jar argued. "Nor can we go to my quarters. Someone would hear your great hulking feet."

"I am quiet," Sascek drew up at that, amazed and hurt.

"You only think you are quiet," T'Jar countered. "Your ears are so far above your feet you scarcely notice the noise they make -- as those of us lower to the ground cannot help but do."

"T'Jar--"

"Besides, I have been given leave to use the library whenever I wish. My lady said so. She called it a library pass."

"A pass?"

"She laughed, perhaps it was one of her human jokes. But the leave was given." T'Jar looked up at him, eyes as wide and black as Vulcan's night. "Sascek?"

"Show me this place," Sascek said, taking her hand.

xxx

In the master bedroom, Sarek and Amanda were resting from their… chores, Amanda drowsy and content, and Sarek meditating, thinking pleasurably upon his wife, the successful evening, and pondering if Vulcan control was equal to preventing his stomach from growling at least until his wife was fully asleep. He glanced at her, watching her lowering eyelids and estimated that in perhaps ten minutes he could get away without waking her. But before his plan could reach its fruition, a cry shattered the silent night, echoing back from the hills, clearly audible through the open windows and the wide flung balcony doors. And jerking his wife out of her near sleep.

"What was that?" Amanda asked, sitting up, now wide awake.

Sarek's eyes had widened as well, and he looked astonished from the windows to his human wife. For a moment he had no answer. Or at least not one he could in countenance voice. Was there no end to the surprises in his household this night?

"What did it sound like to you?" he asked evasively, rising from the bed.

"I don't know." She watched as he crossed the room to the side of their suite that opened to Vulcan's moonless night – and to the darkened court. "But it sounded awfully **close**!"

"Perhaps it was a nightbird," Sarek suggested, decisively setting the window shields to filter sounds and closing the balcony doors.

"That was no kind of nightbird I ever heard," Amanda countered skeptically, puzzled at his actions. Her husband seldom set the window shields, complaining of an infinitesimal hum, inaudible to her, that disturbed his sleep when they were on. They only set them during sandstorms, whose swish partially drowned out the hum. And even then Sarek complained.

Sarek came back to bed, doing his best to ignore the distracting hum, and drew his wife into his arms, planning another distraction for her. "Have I never told you, my wife? There are…**all**…manner of nightbirds."

"Oh?" Amanda regarded him. "I've never heard there were more than the one species. But why set the window--"

"There are others. Indigenous to this habitat on Vulcan. But are seldom known to vocalize."

"Really? But you don't have to--"

"Quite. And then there are some rare varieties," he kissed her, "migrants, as it were, from other areas, that are heard far more frequently. But in a very limited range. Extremely limited." He kissed her again. Deeply. And drew her under him. "Such as this bedroom, for example."

"Ummm," Amanda murmured, her eyes closed, as he drew a hand down her side, and up one thigh.

"Do you understand, my wife?" he asked, lips trailing down her throat.

Amanda opened her eyes, bemused. "What were we talking about?"

"That was the response I hoped for." Sarek said, well satisfied. And continued with his distractions.

_To be continued…_

3


	10. Chapter 10

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

Chapter 10

Picnic time for teddy bears  
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today  
Watch them, catch them unawares  
And see them picnic on their holiday.

Pillowed on towel covered cushions stolen from the library chairs and surrounded by a few choice books from which T'Jar had been reading, the lovers paused in their labors, listening to their own cries bounce off the stone walls. And flying as if on wings, out the wide open windows. In a wing of the house where only family should be in residence. T'Jar removed her hand where it had flown to cover her mouth. She was panting. "Do you think anyone heard? Sascek?"

"I do not care," Sascek said, flush from the triumph of this new and very personal conquest.

"Sascek!"

He settled down next to her. "Does it matter? They will know us to be bondmates soon enough."

At that assumption, T'Jar drew up. "You have not even asked me," she pointed out, unaccountably miffed. "How can you simply assume that I will say yes?"

Sascek was astonished. "Need I ask in words what we have said in our hearts? And with our souls? And with our bodies? After this, do you think I could ever wish for another?"

"Yes, of course you must **ask**. The proposal is always a high point of the story!" she reached out to one of the books surrounding them. "See, in here--

Sascek took the book from her hand, tossed it aside, and took her face in his. "T'Jar, I am not speaking of fiction!"

"Nor am I." She tore her eyes from her discarded book to look into his. "Not entirely, anyway. I wish for more than kisses from you."

"I have **given** you more," Sascek said, looking down at their still flushed bodies, wondering how she could be in any doubt of it.

T'Jar leaned back luxuriously on their makeshift bed. "I wish for more even than that."

Sascek drew back uncertainly. "What more can I give you this night? We must arrange for a healer to properly bond us, but that will have to --"

"I wish for words."

"Words? Are we not speaking now?"

She looked up at the tiered stacks of books above her, around her, in rows all about and around them and raised her arms as if to encompass them. "Words of love. Just think, Sascek. This whole room is…is full of words of love. I am inspired. They have inspired me. You have inspired me. Do you not feel it all around us?"

Sascek looked around him almost uneasily, as if the stacks of books were exhaling a dangerous miasma of emotions. "They are not all love books, T'Jar. Not even **most** of them are love books. Even my lady would not--"

"Even books of human history, of fact, contain love stories. It is an integral part of human relations."

"T'Jar, **we **are **Vulcan**!" Sascek insisted, almost desperately.

"Engaging in such intimate acts before bonding is very **un**Vulcan," she pointed out.

Sascek flinched. "It was you who said you would not bond with me until I could prove to you that I could give you…what you wished."

"And why should I not?" she asked, miffed again. "I have read so much of love now, I would know of it for myself. Sarek has proven that even a Vulcan can know of love. Why can I not have it for myself, even as a Vulcan bonded to a Vulcan? I **will **have it."

"But we **will **be bonded. We will have…Vulcan methods. What need have we for human kisses? And human words?"

"Did you not enjoy the human kisses?"

For a moment Sascek hesitated, obviously torn, and then he admitted. "Yes. Very much."

"Is any touch, in private, not proper between bondmates?"

"Yes."

"Then the words can not be forbidden either. Think how much more we have to learn, Sascek!" T'Jar raised her arms above her head again as if to encompass the whole library.

Sascek blanched, looking from the few books at their side to the huge library. "Surely we don't have to…to **read** them all?"

"Spoken like a true palace guard." T'Jar said, with a trace of amused scorn. "You can deal with a sword or a lance, a lirpa or an ahn woon. Even a phaser, in these modern times, but put a book in your hand--"

"I am no scribe or scholar, to sit pouring over fine print. Certainly not of **human** books."

"Yet I thought you appreciated…the results of my studies." T'Jar asked innocently. She leaned against him and kissed the tip of his ear. "And could wish for more."

Sascek closed his eyes, his logic fleeing at that touch. "Yes. Oh, yes. T'Jar--"

"**I **will read the books," T'Jar asserted. "And **you** will reap the rewards."

"Yes."

"But you must first **ask**." T'Jar picked up a book, "As in here--"

"Very well, I ask for it," Sascek quickly capitulated. "Read to me, T'Jar," he said. "Read for me."

"Sascek!" Frustrated, T'Jar swatted him with the volume in her hands. Sascek looked at her with wide, wounded eyes, and captured her hands in his.

"You …struck me."

"You were supposed to ask for **me**! For my …my hand in marriage." T'Jar tried to pull her hands from his. "Not for me to— **Not** for me to read!"

"For …your **hand**? T'Jar, I want **all **of you." Sascek clutched her hands tighter.

"Oh, you are hopeless, Sascek. You are so…so unromantic. You know nothing of the words of love that I would hear you say." She pulled away from him, cross and disappointed, took up her book anew, and looked down at the volume in her hands. "I wonder if the Lady Amanda has had such troubles."

For a moment, Sascek regarded her non-plussed. Then he hesitantly drew near her again. "T'Jar."

She finally raised her eyes to his.

He took her face in his hands. "I do not understand. But neither could Sarek, Vulcan as we are, have known these things."

"Perhaps he studied, as I have done," T'Jar suggested.

"I think not," Sascek said, unaccountably offended on his clan leader's behalf. "Sarek, read such works as these? Certainly not. Have you ever seen him read the Lady Amanda's books?"

"No," T'Jar admitted.

"Then it must have been the Lady Amanda who taught him. She is after all, a teacher. T'Jar, I don't understand your interest in these Terran ways. But…if this is what you wish…Then you will teach me what you wish me to say. As you have taught me before as to what you wish to do. I am after all, a Vulcan warrior. Though bred to peace for 5000 years, my Vulcan blood is strong. Anything a human can say in these books," he spared them a brief, disparaging glance, "'I would say more eloquently and in our own language. Anything they do, I can exceed." He punctuated that assertion with a kiss. "And in the meantime, I will practice…what I have already learned. Are you sure, you are so interested…now…in these books? Rather than my actions?"

T'Jar's books were abruptly forgotten. "You would speak the same words to me?"

"If I must. When I learn them. Must that learning be now? Surely we have much more to …practice…in deeds alone."

"I suppose… tomorrow is soon enough for words," T'Jar murmured, as the book dropped from her suddenly nerveless hands. "Oh, Sascek. Do it again. Please? Only this time…we must be…**quieter**."

Sascek covered her mouth with his. To ensure it. It was one advantage of the Terran kiss.

_To be continued…_

5


	11. Chapter 11

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 11**

See them gaily gad about  
They love to play and shout;  
They never have any care;

Amanda had fallen fast asleep, but Sarek could not sleep, plagued by both hunger, curiosity and that annoying, infinitesimal hum. After a fruitless exercise in Vulcan disciplines, he gave up the attempt. Disciplines were all very well, but he would not sleep in a hum, discipline or no. And he didn't care how many staff were hiding behind the door in his kitchen, he would have a meal.

He slipped from bed, careful not to jostle his sleeping wife and shrugged into a robe. He hesitated before entering the kitchen, his sharp ears now alert for the slightest sound, even as some part of him bridled at the thought he had to be cautious entering his own kitchen for fear of …interrupting something. But he heard only the sound of his own breathing. Entering, he saw that his aborted meal had been cleared. He raised a brow at that, but refused to allow himself to draw any conclusions on that fact and resolutely made enough of a meal that his stomach ceased its complaints. Having finished and on the way back to his warm bed, he resisted the temptation of his curiosity to check out what had gone on in his household. After all, though out of place, such events were…private. And then, one foot on the stairs, he remembered the hum. Not only had whomever been hiding in his kitchen deprived him of his dinner and kept him from taking a meal, but now their actions meant his sleeping with the windows closed, and with that annoying hum.

Or perhaps the two events were unrelated. He had, after all, hosted a plethora of illogical beings in his home this evening.

After a brief struggle with his conscience, when he told himself that after all, it was his own household, he entered his office, letting the door close behind him. Once within, he drew a relieved breath, assured that at least no one would be lurking **here**, behind a door, or …otherwise. His office, at least, would be considered sacrosanct by guests and staff alike. And without, his household drifted in sleep. He hoped. Now.

But to be sure…

He settled behind his desk, bringing up the household security systems, pondering, puzzling, the source of that …outcry. It had been a female voice.

And far from any suitable location for such doings.

He was not unfamiliar with the human tendency to exhibitionism. At more than one party, seeking a quiet place to reestablish his barriers, his controls, or a moment's meditation he had come across a pair of humans, seeking a quite corner for their…trysts. He was entirely aware that humans being humans, it had likely happened on occasion at parties even in his own home. And at that thought, he felt both disquieted and …something else.

But in this case the party guests had all departed. Surely they had all departed. The security force would see to that. They would notify him instantly of any discrepancy in numbers leaving as opposed to those admitted.

Nevertheless, thinking uneasily of humans so caught up in their amorous pursuits that they overstayed the party, becoming lost and wandering through the Fortress at night, perhaps of wandering outside, prey for lematya, or any of the other desert predators, he felt obligated to check. True the guard was supposed to be watching for such things, but even Vulcans could be delinquent in duties. Or not anticipate the breadth of strange and alien behavior that their guests could sometimes manifest. And humans found the Fortress confusing; Amanda herself had frequently become lost in it in her first few months of residence. They had lighted much more of the gardens for the party, giving humans more opportunity to wander far and perhaps stray.

But upon checking…he found the counts tallied. He was at once both reassured and disturbed anew. He had thought that wordless outcry **had** been from a Vulcan throat. He had been quite sure those hiding behind his kitchen door had been Vulcan. But he could not remotely conceive that any of his Vulcan staff would engage in such doings. Not in the Fortress proper. Not when they had their own quarters for such pursuits.

And then there was the issue of where it had come from. It had been high above them, and to the right. In fact, it had sounded very like it had come from the media complex. Sarek told himself anew that he must have been mistaken. Perhaps it had been a bird, or some animal just above the library, on the rooftop gardens or the parapets. In the throes of passion, many animals cried out with almost human-- He stopped himself at that thought. Except it had been a Vulcan voice. He was sure of that. And Amanda had heard it too. Meaning the cry had been very loud and very close. In a part of the Fortress no staff should be using, this late at night, or to such purpose.

Who would use the library in that manner? His bonded staff all had homes or adequate quarters on the grounds and were hardly likely to be overtaken by passion. Certainly not in the media center, scene of innumerable, interminable meetings. Those advisors, aides and attendants who had clearance to the media center, were all quite…proper…Vulcans. Who would never engage in an illogical tryst in such a location.

For a moment, he resisted his curiosity as being prurient. But then he thought of that hum. And the fact that he had hesitated even entering his kitchen. At least, he could determine if there had been visitors in the library, and if their revels now had ceased. After all, this was his own home. Both shamed and resolute, he punched up the security program. It recorded all doors opening and closing in the huge fortress. And all windows as well.

And there, he had his answer. The proof. Not an hour before he had heard the outcry, the prosaic recording of the media center being accessed. He closed his eyes and refused to view that part of the screen which indicated **who** had so entered. There were lines he would not cross. And not long after, the security program indicated a pair of windows being opened in the library. And some time after he had heard the outcry, the same notation of the windows being closed. And the door being accessed again, as the …visitors…left. It had not been his imagination. And as no one had left the Fortress after that, it had been a member of his staff. Household or diplomatic, but undeniably Vulcan.

Now that he had the …evidence… he was not sure what to do. Or even if to do anything. He puzzled over that for a moment. This was his household. His private household. And he rather disliked the idea of it being so used.

Then shook his head – a human contamination. Not long after his marriage, he had banished the Vulcan staff from his private household, retribution for his wife's lack of clan status. Now that T'Pau had relented and she had such status, he had lately lectured his wife on the necessity of allowing clan attendants into this part of her life. Perhaps, unwelcome as the thought might be, he had some lessons of his **own** to learn in that regard. At least she was right in one respect. He admitted that things had gotten rather …out of control in his household of late.

And wouldn't Amanda find amusing in what respect things had gotten out of control.

He devoutly hoped the …lovers…had learned the lesson to be discreet in future. And at least spare him her discovery of that. He would never live it down.

Sighing a very human sigh at the innumerable ways life and fate chose to plague him, he went back to his suite. At least he could now turn off the irritating window screens, opening the balcony doors to the cool mountain breezes, assured there would be no more cries this evening, disturbing their rest, and raising questions on the part of his human wife that he had no wish to answer.

But in spite of the lack of the screens' distracting hum, he found himself disinclined for sleep. Between the party and his discovery, he was, as Amanda would say, too 'keyed up'. He could meditate, but he was disinclined for Vulcan disciplines. He was half hoping his wife would have awakened in his absence, or upon his return, for that might leave certain pleasurable options open. But Amanda was fast asleep after her stressful day, and in his absence she had wrapped her arms around a pillow, hugging it close. She looked far too peaceful and innocent to disturb.

He sighed and settled next to her, careful not to jostle the bed and awaken her. And then his eyes fell on the book on her bedtable. It wouldn't be the first time he'd read his wife's books when he was disinclined for sleep or meditation. Generally they were archaic Terran fiction, often something by Jane Austen, for Amanda had read her words so often she found them soporific. But he didn't mind. Though now a diplomat, once he had been a scientist, highly trained in analytical thought. He could glean something useful from almost any research endeavor.

Even archaic Terran fiction.

Even Jane Austen.

Even a love story.

Amanda would attest to that.

He settled down, the book in his hands, and flipped the pages open to reread one of his favorite passages.

_To be continued…_

5


	12. Chapter 12

**Library Pass**

**By**

**Pat Foley**

**Chapter 12**

At six o'clock their mummies and daddies,  
Will take them home to bed,  
Because they're tired little teddy bears.

Though it was early the next morning, Sascek wasn't suffering from a lack of sleep. In fact, he felt suffused with well being, and he hurried to the kitchen before the rest of the staff would normally be there, to see T'Jar, who as T'Rueth's assistant arose first.

She looked up as he entered, and though she wasn't smiling, her face glowed. "Sascek!"

He was suddenly shy. "T'Jar…did you rest well?"

"I could not rest at all," she confessed. "My thoughts were full."

"Do you still--"

"Yes. Do you?" she asked anxiously.

"Of course. We must tell our parents."

"But we cannot tell them **everything**," she replied, appalled.

"No."

T'Rueth entered the kitchen and both Vulcans greeted her. "You are here early, Sascek," she noted. "Breakfast is not yet ready."

"I will come back," Sascek said, giving T'Jar a meaningful look.

"I will just inquire of the Lady Amanda and Sarek what they would like," T'Jar said, and made good her escape.

"Let us call our parents now," Sascek whispered, when the door had safely closed behind them.

"But, I must--"

"If we do not do so now, we will have to wait for this evening, and another day will pass before we can make arrangements to be bonded. And I cannot wait long, T'Jar."

"Being unbonded did not stop you before," she teased.

"T'Jar--"

"Very well. We can use Sarek's office," she whispered. "There is a communications unit there. And it will be private."

Hand in hand the two Vulcans hurried off.

xxx

Sarek, meanwhile, had been dressing, eyeing his still sleeping wife and not being especially quiet about his movements. But when that ploy failed to awaken her, he was forced to use other methods to rouse a wife who was just as determinedly trying to stay asleep. "Amanda?"

She responded by rolling herself in the sheet. "Just a few more minutes."

Sarek sat down on the edge of the bed and spoke to her mummified length. "It is time to arise."

"It can't be morning. I just went to bed a few hours ago."

"'It is the lark, the herald of the morn," Sarek quoted teasingly. "'Night's candles are burnt out.'"

"Go away, Romeo," the sheet intoned. "Your Juliet has shuffled off this mortal coil. Expired from an overdose of Federation politics. Always lethal in excess. You knew the dangers. Go away, shut the door and weep for me, past hope, past care, past help.1"

"You always say this after every party," Sarek said, "and yet, you will rise again. With a little persuasion. Another of my taxing chores as bondmate."

The sheet rolled itself up a little tighter. "Ning was telling me just last night that when she metamorphosized into her adult state, she wrapped herself in a cocoon and slept for three months. **Three months.** She said it was heavenly. I think I want to be a Helio being."

"Unfortunately, you are **not** a Helio being. And you have six classes to teach today. You will need to be wrapped in something more than a sheet." Sarek tugged on the end of the sheet and deftly unrolled her with a snap of the wrist. "And though emerged from her chrysalis, she is yet quite human," he remarked, and tickled her toes with a finger.

She regarded him darkly, unmoved, and restrained herself from delivering a swift kick and taking that smug look right off his face. She would never actually do it, but oh what a tempting thought. No one had a right to be so awake and so amused after so short a night. "I have never been less impressed with your questionable sense of humor."

As if picking up her thought, he encircled her slender ankle with a firmly restraining hand. "Regardless--"

"I must have done something very bad in a previous life. Murder. Or worse. It is cruel and unusual punishment to expect me not only to give **your** dinner parties, but also expect me to get up the next morning and **teach** after such a shortened night. Surely I deserve a day of vacation."

"So you always say. But, as you know, Vulcans do not take vacations. And as you teach at the VSA--"

"Do you know that if I had stayed on Terra, married some human, and taught there, I'd get three days off every seven? Three whole days? Plus six weeks of vacation a Terran year. What have you to say to **that, **you tyrannical slave driver?"

"You have repeatedly stated your love for teaching. You should thus be grateful to me, for providing you an environment where you can indulge in it daily." Sarek raised a brow, but gave as good as he got. "To put it in human terms, I did you a favor in marrying you." But at that, he drew back, prudently out of kicking range.

"Oh, that **does** it. You're insufferable." She took her pillow from behind her head and flung it at him, and when he raised an arm to ward it off, launched herself at the opening in his guard. He went back under the force of her assault, but soon captured her and rolled her over.

True to most hostilities, the warfare escalated, and both were so engaged they neither heard the tinkle of the door harp on the outer suite or T'Jar's light tap. Amanda had just laid possession to the principle weapon, and lambasted her husband, refusing to let go even when Sarek grappled for it and tugged, forgetting his great strength. The pillow ripped with a tearing sound and T'Jar walked in on her astonished employers to the accompaniment of a burst of micro down. She stared from the down clusters flying through the air to the wreck of the room, sheets and pillows tossed everywhere, and her employers, one flushing red human, naked as the day born, and one green tinged Vulcan, dressed but with his clothing plastered with sticky down.

Sarek recovered first. "T'Jar, your mistress could use some tea." When the girl didn't move, still staring, astonished in her turn, he added, "Now," in the emphatic mode, and rose to his feet, his mein and manner every inch a clan leader regardless of the questionable circumstances.

"That does it," Amanda sat up amid a small flurry of down particles after T'Jar had fled. She was half amused, half dismayed. "We have permanently shattered that girl's Vulcan illusions. And it is all your fault."

"You were the one refusing to awaken--"

Outside there was a roaring of servo vehicles and a crash of a lift gate letting down. "Oh, no," Amanda moaned and flung the sheet over her head again, setting off a small down storm. "Not again."

Sarek rose to his feet, set the suite's air handling controls to 'filter', and looked out the windows. "They are dismantling--"

"I don't care, make them stop. That's no herald of the morn I can deal with. I'm going to go back to sleep."

"Amanda, you will feel better when you have some tea," Sarek said, trying futilely to brush off his clothes and realizing he would have to entirely change.

"I'll feel better after at least two more hours of sleep. Can't you arrange that, oh deistic one? You said you were a god."

Sarek looked from his wife, cocooned again, to his clothing, hopelessly down-spattered, and reflected that if he were a god, his supernatural powers lacked some efficacy. At another crash from outside, and a moan from his enshrouded wife, he changed swiftly and left to take matters in his own hand.

xxx

T'Jar ran down the stairs, her face bright green with embarrassment, and ran smack into Sascek.

"You --!" she sputtered.

"T'Jar!"

She caught hold of her tongue, reflecting that things had changed. True he was Sascek, forever underfoot and always where he was least wanted. But he was to be her promised bondmate now. "You startled me."

"Has something happened? Your color…"

She blushed anew. "Sarek and the Lady Amanda…"

"Did they ask you about last night?"

"No. They were – I walked in--"

He correctly deduced her embarrassment. "T'Jar do not speak of anything that would violate their privacy--"

"Oh, they were not kissing. They were – in some sort of altercation--"

"Altercation?"

"A pillow had ripped and feathers were everywhere and--"

Sascek's brow cleared. "They were not fighting, T'Jar."

"No? But the room was so …disordered and …"

"It is only a game they play. Usually it is with words only, but even I have heard--" he hesitated, embarrassed in turn. When he'd heard them 'fighting' before, he and T'Rueth had shielded T'Jar from the facts, considering her too young.

"They were …playing?" Her voice rose in astonishment as she considered what she'd seen.

"Softly, T'Jar!" Sascek drew her back into Sarek's office, and closed the door. "I think you will find, when you take them their breakfast, they are as they always are with each other."

"They were playing?" she said, amazed. "Only playing. Like pre-Kahs Wan children." She shook her head, thinking she had something else to consider.

"T'Jar, I have a healer on the comm to discuss bonding arrangements.

"Very well, but I will have to be quick," T'Jar said, looking at the door. "I have to hurry to get them tea."

"They will undoubtedly be grateful for a few moments to compose themselves," Sascek said dryly.

She shrugged in tacit agreement to that, and went to join Sascek at the comm console.

Xxx

Holding the tray precisely level in his hands, Sarek shouldered the door to their suite prudently closed.

"Amanda?"

She sighed and shifted under the sheet, throwing it aside, and sitting up, rubbing her eyes. "I know, I know. I'm getting up."

Sarek put the tray on the bed. He had retrieved the tray from a blushing T'Jar, reflecting to spare them both another too soon encounter at the scene of the crime. Even though he felt sure of keeping his own countenance, Amanda – and even T'Jar, were far less likely to do so. But when he had entered his office to make a critical call, what he had seen on the floor had almost disturbed his own equilibrium. A fragment of microdown. And when he went to make the call, there, on his communications console, had been another fragment of down. Even his office was no longer his own. He shook his head minutely, human style, and shelved that concern for the moment. But he had determined at that development that he would speak to the …culprits. But first, his wife… "Unfortunately, I cannot make or create time for you. But as a substitute…"

"Oh! Caffeine! With sugar. Sure to jumpstart even the most sluggish human." She took a sip, sighed, and looked at him innocently. "The nectar of the gods. Thank you. You have some microdown in your hair." She plucked it out and added, "and on your tunic and on--"

"It wasn't there when I went down," Sarek said. "I changed."

"Just keep telling yourself that, dear, it will help save your Vulcan image. In your own eyes at least. And I think you're going to have to change again."

"You are quite wicked."

"Me? Who ripped the pillow? That wasn't me."

"You started it. You helped."

Amanda laughed. "You sound about five years old. Someday, my husband we really must grow up."

"And you must get up."

"I know. I'm coming back to life with every sip." Her eyes widened. "Sarek! It's quiet! What happened to the crash and boom gang?"

"I stopped them."

"You did? I take it all back. You are a god. The god of all gods Vulcan. I bow at your feet. Or will, when I get up. How did you manage it?"

"I called the distributor and notified them that we would keep the lighting system."

"You ….**what**?"

"I told you I fancied the fairy lights." He said, unperturbed.

"That's…they're…completely impractical."

Sarek tilted his head, considering. "How did my human wife put it last night in reference to another illogical item? I like them. They're pretty. I want to keep them."

"Sarek, you are hanging around me much too much," she said, eying him warily. "You're starting to scare me. Say something logical quickly. Or I may be forced to call T'Pau for an intervention."

He just raised a brow. "**If** we keep them, we will not have to listen to that racket with every party preparation. And every tear down."

Amanda nodded her head. "Well, that **is** true. And logical. Quite brilliant in fact."

"Naturally."

"You really are insufferable."

"Let us not go there. We have already destroyed your pillow."

"What is this we business? It was you who--"

"Amanda, if you do not arise now, and dress quickly, you will not have time for breakfast."

"I've had a breakfast," she said, indicating her cup.

"A proper breakfast is not composed of caffeine and sugar."

"All right, spoilsport, I'm up, I'm up." Amanda proved it by getting to her feet. And then sank to her knees, in a salaam. "Thank you for the tea, oh, great one, god of gods." She backed away towards the bath.

"Must I ensure you stay up by escorting you down to breakfast?"

"I knew this had something to do with breakfast," she said, reappearing. "You must be starving after missing dinner last night."

Sarek didn't comment. Which Amanda took as assent. Dressing as casually as her position as teacher allowed, and merely plaiting her hair, she was ready in record time, not incidentally hurried along by Sarek's air of barely repressed patience. "There, do we still have time for a 'proper' breakfast?"

"A short one," Sarek said, reflecting that at least this was one meal that would not be interrupted by his trysting staff.

xxx

But the trysting staff had other ideas. "We have to tell them," Sascek insisted. "We have told our families, they are logically the next who must know. Aside from the traditional aspects of their being our clan leaders and employers, and the implicit disrespect if they are not the next to be informed, there is also the more practical aspects of appropriate housing."

"You don't understand. It isn't just that Sarek noticed us last night-- "

"We do not know that--"

"But also this morning, I--"

"I told you as a personal attendant one **sees** things. One doesn't ever **look**. Or notice. Or comment."

"And I am sure, when he took the tray from me, he knew we had been in his office--"

"He could not."

"He knew!"

"You are merely troubled by all that has happened. As soon as we tell them, you will be more at ease."

"Oh, this is **not** the way things go in books," T'Jar moaned as he took her hand firmly in his.

"This is not more of your Terran fiction, T'Jar," he hissed back, and led her to their employers.

xxx

Sarek saw the ….lovers…approaching the terrace table, and figuratively threw in the towel. He was beginning to believe he would never take a meal uninterrupted in his household again. Or would he…

Though less than pleased at missing another meal, far from being the interview T'Jar had dreaded, Sarek took the news of the impending nuptials with something akin to relief. Here at last was a situation he could handle, and a possible solution to his recent troubles. After expressing the appropriate gratified acknowledgement of their union, and allowing a stunned Amanda to do the same, he swiftly raised the subject of appropriate quarters. Fortunately the Fortress had ample room for such accommodations, and he soon settled it that they could occupy a commodious suite, with room for suitable ….expansion of family… and even a patch of garden, in a far distant wing. Far distant. In fact, as far distant as Sarek could arrange and still be in the fortress proper. With the most…critical… rooms facing the mountains, and not the inner court. Where sounds would be least likely to carry.

"That is most generous, Sarek," Sascek said gratefully. As head of Amanda's security detail, he was a most important retainer, but the proposed accommodations rivaled anything he might have expected.

"Naturally it has a full and complete kitchen," Sarek said blandly. "For …late night …snacks."

Sascek and T'Jar both froze, neither looking at the other. Amanda gave them, and him a puzzled look. "Snacks? What an odd thing to --"

"In addition, it is close to the fortress boundaries," Sarek said casually, not answering her. "With the accompanying population of wildlife nearby. But you will not be disturbed by such creatures, no matter how loud their nighttime cries."

"N-No, of course not," Sascek stuttered, a flush washing over his features, while T'Jar turned bright green.

"That's right," Amanda remarked, for once, slow on the uptake, probably from sleep deprivation. "I remember **hearing** something last night--"

Sarek overrode that comment. "And of course it has full communication facilities, so those need never be …borrowed elsewhere…in future."

T'Jar gave a strangled moan, and only Sascek's hand firm behind her back kept her in place.

"No, indeed," Sascek said.

This time Amanda looked truly puzzled. "Communication facil--"

"Then I trust these arrangements will be suitable to **all** involved," Sarek said, with grateful relief and dismissed them. He was short a breakfast, but he hoped he had won the war.

"What was all that about?" Amanda asked, bemused. "That was the strangest combination of amenities I've ever heard mention relative to an apartment.

"It seemed appropriate in **this** situation," Sarek said dryly and regretfully regarded the remainder of his breakfast, that even by wolfing – as Amanda called it – he could not finish.

She looked at him closely. "You weren't at all surprised by their announcement, were you?"

"I suspected something of the sort," Sarek said casually.

"You did? How did you know?"

Sarek glanced at her, and considered her teasing of yesterday. Perhaps being short of breakfast brought out something equally inestimable in him. "A little bird told me."

She made a face, miffed. "Sarek. Come on, tell me. How did you know? I never suspected at all – I never even saw a glance pass between them--"

"No," Sarek agreed wryly. "Not a glance. Certainly"

Amanda was still clueless. "Then how--"

"I told you that Surak's heirs had omniscient characteristics, my wife."

She sat back, frustrated. "Which means you **aren't** going to tell me."

"Perhaps, some day, when you are more …grown up," Sarek suggested.

"Can it be Vulcan to enjoy teasing your wife?"

"My wife **is** an incorrigible tease. And thus deserves such treatment in kind," Sarek returned equably. "And as two can play at these games…"

"Are we playing a game?" she asked, giving him an arch look.

"When are we ever not?" he teased in turn. ""Perhaps you can invent a religion, my wife and ask those gods."

"Oh, indeed? Perhaps next party you can deal with T'Rueth yourself."

Even the tactician, Sarek decided to quit while he was well ahead. "It is time for us to go, my wife. "You will be late for the Academy. And I for Council."

Amanda drew a breath, but Sarek had already taken her hand and drawn her to her feet.

xxx

Sascek and T'Jar stood in the attached garden of their new apartment. "It is beautiful," T'Jar said, enraptured. "Room enough even for you, huge as you are, to walk about without encumbrance. And a study for me to read. And one for you, to clean your interminable weapons."

"T'Jar," Sascek said. "Sarek could not have been more plain that our… trespasses were to cease."

"Oh, yes, we will never use his office again," T'Jar said, busy with other concerns. The apartment was lovely, but she already had designs on one of the hill farms. "And the kitchen in this apartment is more than adequate." Her eyes narrowed, as she watched Sarek and Amanda walk the path to the hanger, foreshortened into tiny, and far less formidable figures by distance, "but I **still** have my library pass. My lady said nothing about rescinding that. And I **will** read."

Sascek sighed and resigned himself to that. And then thinking of the rewards, considered that perhaps it was not at all a bad compromise.

xxx

Amanda was the least satisfied of the four, and she paused on the way out the gate. "Sarek, you are really being unfair. Why won't you tell me? How did you know?"

"Amanda--"

"If I were Vulcan, wouldn't I know as well?"

He looked down at her and considered. It was true, and she did have a point at that. Well aware she'd scored one, and never shy to claim an advantage, she raised a brow in challenge. "I will get it out of you one way or another," she warned.

Conceding that fact with a flick of his own brow, he bent his head and whispered in her ear.

Her eyes widened. "They did what!"

"Softly, my wife!" Sarek said, and taking her hand, hustled her down the path.

_Fini_

**Library Pass**

Holography 3-B

September – November, 2005

By Pat Foley

At Brookwood

Inspired by Sascek and T'Jar,

Sarek and Amanda,

And Phyllis McGinley's

_Eros in the Kitchen_

(with profuse apologies in that regard to T'Rueth, the cook of record)

And the

Teddy Bear Picnic.

Dedicated to those who agreed that Sascek and T'Jar should hook up,

And those who wrote and told me they "fangirl" Sascek.

**References**

_Teddy Bear Picnic_, words by Jimmy Kennedy, music by John K. Bratton 1907

McGinley,Phyllis, "_Eros in the kitchen_", Times Three, Vantage Press, NY 1960

1 Shakespeare, William, _Romeo and Juliet_

13


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